CAREERS 
OF  DANGER 
AND  DARING 


SB    E77    1DM 


THE  STEEPLE  CLIMBER  -~ 
THE  DEEP  SEA  DIVER  -*- •*- 
THE  BALLQ ON  1ST  —-  •*•  -*• 
THE  PI  LOT-*-^- -*-•*- 
THE  BRIDGE  BUILDER 
THE  CITY  FIREMAN  -^  - 
THE  AERIAL  4CRQP AT  -» 
THE  WILDTBEAST  TAMER-^ 
THE  DYN  AM  1TE  W  O  R  K  E  R 
THE  LOCOMOTIVE  ENGINEER 


LEV ELAND 
MOFFETT'* 


U 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

PRESENTED  BY 

PROF.  CHARLES  A.  KOFOID  AND 
MRS.  PRUDENCE  W.  KOFOID 


CAREERS    OF   DANGER 
AND    DARING 


DIVERS   AT   WORK    NEAR    A    WRECK. 


CAREERS  OF  DANGER 
AND  DARING 


BY 


CLEVELAND    MOFFETT 


WITH   ILLUSTRATIONS   BY 

JAY  HAMBIDGE  AND    GEORGE  VARIAN 

AND    OTHERS 


NEW   YORK 

THE    CENTURY  CO, 

1903 


Copyright,  1900,  1901,  by 
THE  CENTURY  Co. 

Copyright,  1898,  by 
S.  S.  McCLURE  Co. 

Copyright,  IQOI,  by 
CLEVELAND  MOFFETT. 

Published  October,  1901 


THE  DEVINNE  PRESS. 


2>e&fcatfon 


I   DEDICATE   THIS   BOOK   TO 

MY   TWO   LITTLE   CHILDREN 

ANNE   EUNICE 

AND 

CLEVELAND   LUSK 
IN    LOVE   AND   THE   HOPE   THAT 
IT    MAY    HELP    THEM,    AS   THEY 
GROW   UP,  TO   FORM   HABITS   OF 
COURAGE   AND   USEFULNESS. 
AUGUST,   1901.  C.    M. 


CONTENTS 

* 
THE  STEEPLE-CLIMBER 

PAGE 

I  In  Which  We  Make  the  Acquaintance  of  "  Steeple  Bob  "  .3 
II  How  They  Blew  Off  the  Top  of  a  Steeple  with  Dynamite  .  14 
in  The  Greatest  Danger  to  a  Steeple-Climber  Lies  in  Being  Startled  21 
iv  Experience  of  an  Amateur  Climbing  to  a  Steeple-top  .  .  29 

THE  DEEP-SEA  DIVER 

i  Some  First  Impressions  of  Men  Who  Go  Down  Under  the  Sea  40 
II  A  Visit  to  the  Burying-ground  of  Wrecks  .  .  .  -54 
III  An  Afternoon  of  Story-telling  on  the  Steam-pump  Dunderberg  63 
iv  Wherein  We  Meet  Sharks,  Alligators,  and  a  Very  Tough  Prob- 
lem in  Wrecking  .  .  .  *  •  •  .  71 
v  In  Which  the  Author  Puts  on  a  Diving-suit  and  Goes  Down  to 

a  Wreck 78 

THE  BALLOONIST 

i  Here  We  Visit  a  Balloon  Farm  and  Talk  with  the  Man  Who 

Runs  It       .         .         ,         .         .         .         .         .         .         .87 

II  Which  Treats  of  Experiments  in  Steering  Balloons  .          .     99 

III  Something   About    Explosive    Balloons    and   the  Wonders    of 

Hydrogen  .          .          .          .         .         .          .         .          .no 

iv  The  Story  of  a  Boy  Who  Ran  Away  in  a  Big  Balloon        .          .    117 

THE  PILOT 

i  Some  Stirring  Tales  of  the  Sea  Heard  at  the  Pilot's  Club          .   130 
II  Which  Shows   How   Pilots   on   the    St.    Lawrence    Fight  the 

Ice-floes       ..........   141 

ill  Now  We  Watch  the  Men  Who  Shoot  the  Furious  Rapids  at 

Lachine       ..........   148 

iv  What  Canadian  Pilots  Did  in  the  Cataracts  of  the  Nile     .         .160 

vii 


viii  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

THE  BRIDGE-BUILDER 

I  In  Which  We  Visit  a  Place  of  Unusual  Fears  and  Perils  .   173 

II  The  Experience  of  Two  Novices  in  Balancing  Along  Narrow 

Girders  and  Watching  the  "  Traveler  "  Gang        .         .         .182 
in  Which  Tells  of  Men  Who  Have  Fallen  from  Great  Heights      .   197 


THE  FIREMAN 

I  Wherein  We  See  a  Sleeping  Village  Swept  by  a  River  of  Fire 

and  the  Burning  of  a  Famous  Hotel     .....  209 

II  What  Bill  Brown  Did  in  the  Great  Tarrant  Fire       .         .         .222 
in  Here  We  Visit  an  Engine-house  at  Night  and  Chat  with  the 

Driver         ..........  233 

iv  Famous    Rescues   by   New   York    Fire-boats    from    Red-hot 

Ocean  Liners       .........  241 


THE  AERIAL  ACROBAT 

i  Showing  That  it  Takes  More  Than  Muscle  and  Skill  to  Work 
on  the  High  Bars         ........  255 

II  About   Double   and  Triple    Somersaults   and   the  Danger   of 

Losing  Heart 264 

in  In  Which  the  Author  Tries  His  Hand  with  Professional  Trapeze 

Performers  .........  272 

IV  Some    Remarkable    Falls    and    Narrow    Escapes    of    Famous 

Athletes 284 


THE  WILD-BEAST  TAMER 

I  We  Visit  a  Queer  Resort  for  Circus  People  and  Talk  with  a 
Trainer  of  Elephants    ........  293 

II  Methods  of  Lion-tamers  and  the  Story  of  Brutus's  Attack  on 

Mr.  Bostock         .........   304 

Hi  Bonavita  Describes  His  Fight  with  Seven  Lions  and  George 

Arstingstall  Tells  How  He  Conquered  a  Mad  Elephant         .  317 
iv  We  See  Mr.  Bostock  Matched  Against  a  Wild  Lion  and  Hear 

About  the  Tiger  Rajah         .......  328 

v  We  Spend  a  Night  Among  Wild  Beasts  and  See  the  Danger- 
ous Lion  Black  Prince          .......  339 


CONTENTS  ix 


PAGE 


THE  DYNAMITE  WORKER 


i  The  Story  of  Some  Millionaire  Heroes  and  the  World's  Great- 
est Powder  Explosion  .......  348 

II  We  Visit  a  Dynamite-factory  and  Meet  a  Man  Who  Thinks 

Courage  is  an  Accident 358 

in  How  Joshua  Plumstead  Stuck  to  His  Nitro-Glycerin-Vat  in  an 

Explosion  and  Saved  the  Works 367 


THE  LOCOMOTIVE  ENGINEER 

i  How  it  Feels  to  Ride  at  Night  on  a  Locomotive  Going  Ninety 

Miles  an  Hour     ...       .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .  377 

II  We  Pick  Up  Some  Engine  Lore  and  Hear  About  the  Death  of 

Giddings      .         ....         .         .         .         .         .         .  388 

in  Some  Memories  of  the  Great  Record-breaking  Run  from  Chicago 

to  Buffalo    .       •,        .        .        ...        .         .         .  395 

IV  We  Hear  Some  Thrilling  Stories  at  a  Round-house  and  Reach 

the  End  of  the  Book •        .         .  406 


ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

About  one  half  the  chapters  in  this  book  appeared  serially  in  "  St.  Nicholas  Mag- 
azine," the  other  half  in  the  "New  York  Herald,"  and  two  chapters  on  the  Locomotive 
Engineer,  and  one  on  the  Wild-Beast  Tamer  appeared  in  "McClure's  Magazine." 
Thanks  are  extended  to  all  these  for  permission  to  republish. 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


DIVERS  AT  WORK  NEAR  A  WRECK  ....  Frontispiece 

"I  HAD  TO  CRAWL  AROUND  AND  OVER  IT" 5 

AT  THE  TOP  OF  ST.  PAUL'S,  NEW  YORK 10 

"THEN  MY  PARTNER  STOOD  ON  MY  SHOULDERS"  .  .  .12 
"SOMETIMES  IN  HARD  PLACES  You  HAVE  TO  THROW  YOUR 

NOOSES  AROUND  THE  SHAFT" 16 

PICTURE  OF  THE  FALLING  STEEPLE,  PHOTOGRAPHED  JUST  AFTER 

THE  DYNAMITE  EXPLODED.    THE  FALLING  SECTION  WAS 

35  FEET  IN  LENGTH  AND  WEIGHED  35  TONS  .  .  .20 
LOOKING  FROM  THE  GROUND  UPWARD  AT  ST.  PAUL'S  SPIRE, 

BROADWAY,  NEW  YORK  CITY 25 

GILDING  A  CHURCH  CROSS,  ABOVE  NEW  YORK  CITY  .  .  .30 
How  THE  STEEPLE-CLIMBER  GOES  UP  A  FLAGPOLE  .  .  -37 
PORTRAIT  OF  A  DIVER.  DRAWN  FROM  LIFE  ,  .  .  -43 
"THE  DIVER'S  HELMET  SHOWED  LIKE  THE  BACK  OF  A  BIG 

TURTLE"  .  .-  * .  '  .  . 46 

DIVER  STANDING  ON  SUNKEN  COAL  BARGE  .        .        ....        •    51 

THE  MEN  AT  WORK  WITH  THE  AIR-PUMP        .        .        .        -57 
"I  STAYED  DOWN  UNTIL  THAT  CHAIN  WAS  UNDER  THE  SHAFT"    60 
THE  MAN  WHO  ATTENDS  TO  THE  DIVER'S  SIGNALS    .        .        .65 
A  DIVER  AT  WORK  ON  A  STEAMBOAT'S  PROPELLER      .        .        -75 
THE  AUTHOR  GOING  DOWN  IN  A  DIVER'S  SUIT  ....    80 

THE  AUTHOR  AFTER  HIS  FIRST  DIVE.  THE  FACE-PLATE  HAS 

BEEN  UNSCREWED  FROM  THE  HELMET 83 

"BALLOON-CLOTH  BY  HUNDREDS  OF  YARDS"  ....  88 

xi 


xii  LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

"FIELDS  THAT  LOOK  LIKE  AN  ESKIMO  VILLAGE"        .        .        .89 
"A  PAIR  OF  GREAT  WINGS  MADE  OF  FEATHERS  AND  SILK— 

WHICH,  ALAS  !  WOULD  NEVER  FLY" 91 

PROFESSOR  MYERS  IN  HIS  "SKYCYCLE" 93 

How  THE  EARTH  LOOKS  WHEN  VIEWED  FROM  A  HEIGHT  OF 

ONE  MILE.     (Photographed  from  a  Balloon.)  .        .        .96 
MME.  CARLOTTA  STEERING  A  BALLOON  BY  TIPPING  THE  FOOT- 
BOARD         .        .  ioo 

"!N  SPITE  OF  ALL  THEIR  SKILL  THESE  INDIANS  FOUND  THEM- 
SELVES  PRESENTLY  LIFTED  INTO  THE  AIR,   CANOES  AND 
ALL"         .   '    .        .       .  .       .       .       s-      .        .103 

MME.  CARLOTTA  CALLS  FOR  ASSISTANCE  FROM  ANOTHER  BAL- 
LOONIST THREE  MILES  AWAY      .        .        .        .        .        .  107 

A  BALLOON-PICNIC  AT  THE  AERONAUTS'  HOME       .       .        .  112 
"STEVENS  CAME  DOWN  ONCE  WITH  A  PARACHUTE  Two  MILES 
OUT  IN  THE  ATLANTIC  OCEAN — AND  WAS  PROMPTLY  RES- 
CUED"        119 

THE  RESCUE  OF  THE  "OREGON'S"  PASSENGERS    ....  132 
A  PILOT- BOAT  RIDING  OUT  A  STORM 138 

RIVER-BUOYS  ON  THE  BANK  FOR  THE  WINTER     ....    145 

"BiG  JOHN"  STEERING  A  BOAT  THROUGH  THE  LACHINE  RAPIDS  150 

By  permission  of  William  Notman  &  Son. 

FRED  OUILLETTE,  THE  YOUNG  PILOT 153 

THE  INDIAN  PILOTS  RESCUE  PASSENGERS  FROM  THE  STEAMER 

ON  THE  ROCKS 156 

"MAN  OVERBOARD!"  AN  INDIAN  CANOE  TO  THE  RESCUE    .        .  158 

THE  PILOT,  "Bic  JOHN" .        .162 

HAULING  A  STEAMER  UP  THE  NILE  RAPIDS 165 

CUTTING  THE  LINE — A  MOMENT  OF  PERIL 167 

"OVER  THEY  WENT,  THE  WHOLE  BLACK  LINE  OF  THEM"    .        .  169 
How  THE  ENGINEERS  WERE  CARRIED  OVER  TO  THE  NILE  ISLANDS  170 
THE  WORK  OF  THE  BRIDGE-BUILDERS.    A  TOWER  OF  THE  NEW 
EAST  RIVER  BRIDGE.    THIS  PHOTOGRAPH  ALSO  ILLUSTRATES 
THE  NARROW  ESCAPE  OF  JACK  McGREGGOR  ON  THE  SWING- 
ING COLUMN  .  175 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS  xiii 

PAGE 

"THERE  WAS  PAT,  FAST  ASLEEP,  LEGS  DANGLING,  HEAD  NOD- 
DING, AS  COMFORTABLE  AS  YOU  PLEASE"    .        .        .        .179 
"THE  IRON  STREET  LOOKED  DELICATE,  NOT  MASSIVE"        .        .  184 
WARMING  THEIR  LUNCHES  AT  THE  BOILER-FIRE        .        .        .  186 

A  STRANGE  WAY  TO  GO  TO  MEALS 186 

"ITS  MASCOT  KITTEN,  CURLED  UP  THERE  BY  THE  AsH-Box"    .  jSg 

RIDING  UP  ON  AN  EIGHTEEN-TON  COLUMN 191 

ON  THE  "TRAVELER."    HOISTING  A  STRUT 195 

WALKING  A  GIRDER  Two  HUNDRED  FEET  IN  AIR      .        .        .  203 

BURNING  OIL-TANKS 210 

"SNYDER,  WHITE  AS  A  GHOST,  RACED  AHEAD  OF  THE  FIRE"  .  213 

"THE  VERY  STREETS  ARE  BURNING" 215 

USE  OF  THE  SCALING  LADDERS 218 

A  HOT  PLACE        .        .        .        . 224 

A  FALLING  WALL  .        ;.     ~./ 231 

A  RESCUE  FROM  A  FIFTH  STORY  .        ...        .        .        .  234 

AT  FULL  SPEED     .        .  '     ..       .        ,        ...      .    '    .        .        .  239 

"INTO  THE  STREET  OF  FIRE,  BETWEEN  THE  Two  PIERS,  STEAMED 

THE    BlG    FlRE-BOAT,    STRAIGHT    IN,    WITH    FOUR    STREAMS 

PLAYING  TO  PORT  AND  FOUR  TO  STARBOARD,  ALL  DOING 

THEIR  PRETTIEST"    ..       ..       .        .,       .,      - .        .        .        .  243 

GALLAGHER'S  RESCUE  OF  A  SWEDE  FROM  THE  BURNING  BARGE  .  245 
SAVING  THE  MEN  OF  THE  "BREMEN"  .  .  .  '$%%'  .  .  250 
FIRE-BOATS  WORKING  ON  THE  "BREMEN"  AND  THE  "SAALE"  .  253 
"As  THEY  SHOOT  TOWARD  THE  MAN  HANGING  FOR  THE  CATCH 

FROM  THE  LAST  BAR"  ...  » 259 

"FOUR  ELEPHANTS  WAS  ENOUGH  FOR  ANY  MAN  TO  LEAP 

OVER" .267 

CIRCUS  PROFESSIONALS  PRACTISING  A  FEAT  OF  BALANCING  .  279 
THROUGH  A  PAPER  BALLOON  AT  THE  END  OF  A  GREAT  FEAT  .  289 
How  THE  LIONESS  WAS  CAPTURED  ON  THE  OPEN  PRAIRIE  .  295 

MAN  IN  CAGE  WITH  LIONS  .  . 3OJ 

BEGINNING  THE  TRAINING 3°5 

COMING  TO  CLOSE  QUARTERS 3°7 

THE  LION  DESTROYS  THE  CHAIR  ....  ..V.  .  3°8 


xiv  LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

THE  TAMER'S  TRIUMPH.     READING  HIS  NEWSPAPER  IN  THE 

LION'S  CAGE 310 

BIANCA  RESCUES  BOSTOCK  FROM  "BRUTUS"  .  .  .  .315 
BONAVITA'S  FIGHT  WITH  SEVEN  LIONS  IN  THE  RUNWAY  .  .  320 
"RAJAH'S"  ATTACK  UPON  BONAVITA  IN  THE  RUNWAY  .  .  331 
THE  TIGER  "RAJAH"  KICKED  BY  THE  QUAGGA  ....  334 
PUTTING  THE  TIGER  "RAJAH"  AGAIN  UPON  THE  ELEPHANT'S 
BACK  .  .  .  .  .  ...  .  .  .  337 

A  ROYAL  BENGAL  TIGER      .  345 

YOUNG  DUPONT  WORKING  TO  SAVE  THE  POWDER-MILL  .  .351 
EFFECTS  OF  DYNAMITE  EXPLODED  UNDER  WATER  .  .  .  354 
THE  EXPLOSION  IN  THE  NEW  YORK  CITY  TUNNEL  .  .  .  356 

"EVERYTHING  WAS  BLOWN  TO  PIECES" 361 

"HE  WENT  TO  WORK  THROWING  WATER  ON  THE  BURNING 

BOXES" 365 

"A   SWIFT,  HEAVY  CAR  WAS   PLUNGING  TOWARD  THE  OPEN 

DOOR" 372 

"HE  KNEW  THAT  A  SECOND  EXPLOSION  MIGHT  COME  AT  ANY 

MOMENT" 375 

"A  PLACE  WHERE  YELLOW  EYES  GLARE  OUT  OF  DEEP  SHADOWS"  379 

AT  THE  THROTTLE        . 385 

"THEY  STRUCK  THE  MISSISSIPPI  BRIDGE  AT  FULL  SPEED"  .        .  390 
"As  THE  DRIVERS  BEGAN  TO  TURN  I  JUMPED  ON  THE  COW- 
CATCHER"          397 

A  RECORD-BREAKING  RUN    ........  401 

"DRAWN  BY  THE  IDEA  OF  ITS  GOING  so  BLAMED  FAST  AND 

BEING  so  STRONG" 409 

"CONVICTS  HAD  REVOLVERS  ALL  RIGHT  THAT  TRIP  AND  DENNY 
THREW  UP  HIS  HANDS" 413 


CAREERS  OF  DANGER 
AND  DARING 


CAREERS    OF   DANGER 
AND    DARING 

* 

THE  STEEPLE-CLIMBER 


IN    WHICH    WE    MAKE    THE    ACQUAINTANCE    OF 

"STEEPLE  BOB" 

DURING  the  summer  months  of  1900 — what  blaz- 
ing hot  months,  to  be  sure! — people  on  lower 
Broadway  were  constantly  coming  upon  other  people 
with  chins  in  the  air,  staring  up  and  exclaiming :  "Dear 
me,  is  n't  it  wonderful !"  or  "There  's  that  fellow  again ; 
I  'm  sure  he  '11  break  his  neck!"  Then  they  would 
pass  on  and  give  place  to  other  wonderers. 

The  occasion  of  this  general  surprise  and  apprehen- 
sion was  a  tall  man  dressed  entirely  in  white,  who  ap- 
peared day  after  day  swinging  on  a  little  seat  far  up  the 
side  of  this  or  that  church  steeple,  or  right  at  the  top, 
hugging  the  gold  cross  or  weather-vane,  or,  higher  still, 
working  his  way,  with  a  queer,  kicking,  hitching  move- 
ment, up  various  hundred-foot  flagpoles  that  rise  from 
the  heaven-challenging  office  buildings  down  near  Wall 
Street.  At  these  perilous  altitudes  he  would  hang  for 
hours,  shifting  his  ropes  occasionally,  raising  his  swing 
or  lowering  it,  but  not  doing  anything  that  his  side- 
walk audience  could  see  very  well  or  clearly  under- 
stand. Yet  thousands  watched  him  with  fascination, 
and  a  kodak  army  descended  upon  neighboring  house- 
tops, and  newspapers  followed  the  movements  of 
"Steeple  Bob"  in  thrilling  chronicle. 

3 


4   CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

That  is  what  he  was  called  in  large  black  letters  at 
the  head  of  columns — "Steeple  Bob" ;  but  I  came  to 
know  him  at  his  modest  quarters  on  Lexington  Avenue, 
where  he  was  plain  Mr.  Merrill,  a  serious-mannered 
and  an  unpretentious  young  man,  very  fond  of  his 
wife  and  his  dog,  very  fond  of  spending  evenings  over 
books  of  adventure,  and  quite  indifferent  to  his  day- 
time notoriety.  I  call  him  a  young  man,  yet  in  years 
of  service,  not  in  age,  he  is  the  oldest  steeple-climber 
in  the  business,  ever  since  his  teacher,  " Steeple  Char- 
lie," fell  from  his  swing  some  years  ago  in  New 
Bedford,  Massachusetts,  and  died  the  steeple-climber's 
death. 

I  often  saw  books  of  the  sea  on  Merrill's  table,  and 
accounts  of  whaling  voyages ;  and  he  told  me,  one  even- 
ing (while  through  an  open  door  came  the  snores  of 
his  weary  partner),  about  his  own  adventurous  boy- 
hood, with  three  years'  cruising  in  Uncle  Sam's  navy 
on  the  school-ships  Minnesota  and  Y antic  (he  shipped 
at  the  age  of  twelve)  and  two  years  at  whale-fishing 
in  the  North  Sea.  Quite  ideal  training,  this,  for  a 
steeple-climber;  he  learned  to  handle  ropes  and  make 
them  fast  so  they  would  stay  fast;  he  learned  to  climb 
and  keep  his  head  at  the  top  of  a  swaying  masthead ; 
he  learned  to  bear  exposure  as  lads  must  who  are 
washed  on  deck  every  morning  with  a  hose,  and  stand 
for  inspection,  winter  and  summer,  bare  to  the  waist. 
And  he  gained  strength  of  arm  and  back  swinging  at 
the  oar  while  whale-lines  strained  on  the  sunk  harpoon ; 
and  patience  in  long  stern-chases ;  and  nerve  when  some 
stricken  monster  lashed  the  waters  in  agony  and  the 
boat  danced  on  a  reddened  sea. 

Merrill  laughed  about  the  climb  up  old  Trinity's 
spire,  the  first  climb  when  he  carried  up  the  hauling- 
rope  and  worked  his  way  clear  to  the  cross,  with  noth- 
ing to  help  him  but  the  hands  and  feet  he  was  born 


THE    STEEPLE-CLIMBER 


with,  and  did  it 
coolly,  while  men 
on  the  street  below 
turned  away  sick- 
ened with  fear  for 
him. 

"I  'm  telling  you 
the  truth,"  said 
Steeple  Bob,  "when 
I  say  it  was  an  easy 
climb ;  any  fairly 
active  man  could  do 
it  if  he  'd  forget  the 
height.  I  'm  not 
talking  about  all 
steeples — some  are 
hard  and  danger- 
ous ;  but  the  one  on 
Trinity,  in  spite  of 
its  three  hundred- 
odd  feet,  has  knobs 
of  stone  for  orna- 
ment all  the  way  up 
(they  call  them  cor- 
bels), and  all  you 
have  to  do  is  to  step 
from  one  to  an- 
other." 

"How  much  of  a 
step?" 

"Oh,  when  I  stood 
on  one  the  next  one 
came  to  my  breast, 
and  then  I  could 
just  touch  the  one 
above  that." 


I  HAD  TO  CRAWL  AROUND  AND  OVER  IT. 


6       CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

He  called  this  easy  climbing ! 

''The  only  ticklish  bit  was  just  at  the  top,  where 
two  great  stones,  weighing  about  a  ton  apiece,  swell 
out  like  an  apple  on  a  stick,  and  I  had  to  crawl  around 
and  over  that  apple,  which  was  four  feet  or  so  across. 
If  it  had  n't  been  for  grooves  and  scrollwork  in  the 
stone  I  could  n't  have  done  it,  and  even  as  it  was  I  had 
two  or  three  minutes  of  hard  wriggling  after  I  kicked 
off  with  my  feet  and  began  pulling  myself  up." 

"You  mean  you  hung  by  your  hands  from  this  big 
ball  of  stone?" 

"I  hung  mostly  by  my  fingers;  the  scrolls  were  n't 
deep  enough  for  my  hands  to  go  in." 

"And  you  drew  yourself  slowly  up  and  around  and 
over  that  ball  ?" 

"Certainly;  that  was  the  only  way." 

"And  it  was  at  the  very  top?" 

"Yes,  just  under  the  cross.  It  was  n't  much, 
though;  you  could  do  it  yourself." 

I  really  think  Merrill  believed  this.  He  honestly 
saw  no  particular  danger  in  that  climb,  nor  could  I 
discover  that  he  ever  saw  any  particular  danger  in  any- 
thing he  had  done.  He  always  made  the  point  that  if 
he  had  really  thought  the  thing  dangerous  he  would  n't 
have  done  it.  And  I  conclude  from  this  that  being  a 
steeple-climber  depends  quite  as  much  upon  how  a  man 
thinks  as  upon  what  he  can  do. 

"A  funny  thing  happened!"  he  added.  "After  I 
got  over  this  hard  place,  I  slid  into  a  V-shaped  space 
between  the  bulging  stone  and  the  steeple-shaft,  and  I 
lay  there  on  my  back  for  a  minute  or  so,  resting.  But 
when  I  started  to  raise  myself  I  found  my  weight  had 
worked  me  down  in  the  crotch  and  jammed  me  fast, 
and  it  was  quite  a  bit  of  time  before  I  could  get  free.'* 

"How  much  time?     A  minute?" 


THE    STEEPLE-CLIMBER  7 

"Yes,  five  minutes;  and  it  seemed  a  good  deal 
longer." 

Five  minutes  struggling  in  a  sort  of  stone  trap, 
stretched  out  helpless  at  the  very  top  of  a  steeple 
where  one  false  move  would  mean  destruction — that 
is  what  Merrill  spoke  of  as  a  funny  thing!  Thanks,  I 
thought,  I  will  take  my  fun  some  other  way,  and  lower 
down. 

"You  would  be  surprised,"  he  went  on,  "to  feel  the 
movement  of  a  steeple.  It  trembles  all  the  time,  and  an- 
swers every  jar  on  the  street  below.  I  guess  old  Trin- 
ity's steeple  sways  eighteen  inches  every  time  an  ele- 
vated train  passes.  And  St.  Paul's  is  even  worse. 
Why,  she  rocks  like  a  beautifully  balanced  cradle;  it 
would  make  some  people  seasick.  Perhaps  you  don't 
know  it,  but  the  better  a  steeple  is  built  the  more  she 
sways.  You  want  to  look  out  for  the  ones  that  stand 
rigid ;  there  's  something  wrong  with  them — most  likely 
they  're  out  of  plumb." 

"Is  n't  there  danger,"  I  asked,  "that  a  steeple  may 
get  swaying  too  much,  say  in  a  gale,  and  go  clear 
over?"' 

"Gale  or  not,"  said  Merrill,  "a  well-made  steeple 
must  rock  in  the  wind,  the  same  as  a  tree  rocks.  That 
is  the  way  it  takes  the  storm,  by  yielding  to  it.  If  it 
did  n't  yield  it  would  probably  break.  Why,  the  great 
shaft  of  the  Washington  Monument  sways  four  or  five 
feet  when  the  wind  blows  hard." 

Then  he  explained  that  modern  steeples  are  built 
with  a  steel  backbone  (if  I  may  so  call  it)  running 
down  from  the  top  for  many  feet  inside  the  stone- 
work. At  Trinity,  for  instance,  this  backbone  (known 
as  a  dowel)  is  four  inches  thick  and  forty-five  feet 
long,  a  great  steel  mast  stretching  down  through  the 
cross,  down  inside  the  heavy  stones  and  ornaments, 


8       CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

and  ending  in  massive  beams  and  braces  where  the 
steeple's  greater  width  gives  full  security. 

"What  sort  of  work  did  you  do  on  these^  steeples  ?" 
I  asked. 

"All  kinds;  stone-mason's  work,  painter's  work, 
blacksmith's  work,  carpenter's  work — why,  a  good 
steeple-climber  has  to  know  something  about  'most 
every  trade.  It  's  painting  flagpoles,  and  scraping  off 
shale  from  a  steeple's  sides,  and  repairing  loose  stones 
and  ornaments,  and  putting  up  lightning-rods,  and 
gilding  crosses,  and  cleaning  smoke-stacks  so  high  that 
it  makes  you  dizzy  to  look  up,  let  alone  looking  down, 
and  a  dozen  other  things.  Sometimes  we  have  to  take 
a  whole  steeple  down,  beginning  at  the  top,  stone  by 
stone — unless  it  's  a  wooden  steeple,  and  then  we  burn 
her  down  five  or  six  feet  at  a  time,  with  creosote 
painted  around  where  you  want  the  fire  to  stop;  the 
creosote  puts  it  out.  Once  I  blew  off  the  whole  top  of 
a  steeple  with  dynamite ;  and,  by  the  way,  I  '11  tell  you 
about  that  some  time." 

Conversing  with  a  steeple-climber  (when  he  feels 
like  telling  things)  is  like  breathing  oxygen;  you  find 
it  over-stimulating.  In  ten  minutes'  matter-of-fact 
talking  he  opens  so  many  vistas  of  thrilling  interest 
that  you  stand  before  them  bewildered.  He  starts  to 
answer  one  question,  and  you  burn  to  interrupt  him 
with  ten  others,  each  of  which  will  lead  you  hopelessly 
away  from  the  remaining  nine. 

"Did  you  ever  have  any  experiences  with  light- 
ning?" I  asked  Merrill,  one  day. 

"Oh,  a  few,"  he  said.  "A  thunderbolt  struck  the 
Trinity  steeple  the  very  day  we  finished  our  work.  We 
had  just  taken  down  our  tackle  and  staging  after  gild- 
ing the  cross  when — by  the  way,  they  say  there  's  a 
hundred  dollars  in  gold  under  that  cross." 


THE    STEEPLE-CLIMBER  9 

"Really?"  I  exclaimed.     "How  did  it  get  there?" 

"Somebody  ordered  it  put  there  when  the  steeple  was 
built.  People  often  do  queer  things  like  that.  I 
painted  a  flagpole  on  a  barn  up  in  Massachusetts  where 
there  was  four  hundred  dollars  in  gold  hidden  under 
the  weather-vane.  Everybody  knew  it  was  there,  be- 
cause the  farmer  who  put  it  there  told  everybody,  and 
my  partner  was  crazy  to  saw  off  the  end  of  that  pole 
some  night  and  fool  'em,  but  of  course  I  would  n't 
have  it." 

Here  was  I  quite  off  my  thunderbolt  trail,  and  al- 
though curious  about  that  farmer,  I  came  back  to  it 
resolutely. 

"Well,"  resumed  Merrill,  "this  lightning  stroke  came 
down  the  new  rod  all  right  until  it  reached  the  bell- 
deck,  and  there  it  circled  round  and  round  the  steeple 
four  or  five  times,  wrapping  my  assistant  in  bluish- 
white  flame.  Then  it  took  a  long  jump  straight  down 
Wall  Street,  smashed  a  flagpole  to  slivers,  and  van- 
ished. Say,  there  are  things  about  lightning  I  Ve 
never  heard  explained.  I  know  of  a  steeple-climber, 
for  instance,  who  was  killed  by  lightning — it  must  have 
been  lightning,  although  no  one  saw  it  strike.  There 
were  two  of  them  working  on  a  scaffolding  when  a 
thunder-storm  came  up,  and  this  man's  partner  started 
for  the  ground,  as  climbers  with  any  sense  always  do. 
But  this  fellow  was  lazy  or  out  of  sorts  or  something, 
and  said  he  would  n't  go  down,  he  'd  stay  on  the 
steeple  until  the  storm  was  over.  And  he  did  stay 
there,  without  getting  any  harm,  so  far  as  anybody  on 
the  ground  could  see,  except  a  wetting.  Just  the  same, 
when  his  partner  went  up  again,  he  found  him  stretched 
out  on  the  scaffolding,  dead." 

"Frightened  to  death?"  I  suggested. 

Merrill  shook  his  head.     "No,  they  said  it  was  light- 


AT   THE    TOP   OF    ST.    PAUL  S,  NEW    YORK. 


THE    STEEPLE-CLIMBER  n 

ning;  but  it  's  queer  how  lightning  could  14)1  a  man 
without  being  seen,  is  n't  it?" 

Then  Merrill  gave  an  experience  of  his  own  with  a 
thunderbolt.  It  was  during  this  same  busy  summer 
of  1900,  while  he  and  his  partner  were  scraping  the 
great  steel  smoke-stack  that  rises  from  ground  to  roof 
along  one  side  of  the  American  Tract  Society  Building, 
that  towering  structure  which  looks  down  with  con- 
tempt, no  doubt,  upon  ordinary  church  steeples. 

"We  were  in  our  saddles,"  Merrill  explained,  "swung 
down  about  two  thirds  of  the  smoke-stack's  length, 
when  some  black  clouds  warned  us  of  danger,  and  we 
hauled  ourselves  up  to  the  roof.  My  partner,  Walter 
Tyghe,  got  off  his  saddle  and  stood  there  where  my 
wife  was  waiting  (she  often  goes  to  climbing- jobs  with 
me — she  's  less  anxious  when  she  can  watch  me)  ;  but 
I  thought  the  storm  was  passing  over,  and  kept  on 
scraping,  sort  of  half  resting  on  the  cornice,  half  on 
my  saddle.  Suddenly  a  bolt  shot  down  from  a  little 
pink  cloud  just  overhead,  and  splintered  a  big  flagpole 
I  had  just  put  halyards  on,  and  then  jumped  past  us 
all  so  close  that  it  knocked  Walter  over,  and  made 
me  sick  and  giddy  so  that  I  fell  back  limp  on  my  sad- 
dle-board, and  swung  there  helpless  until  my  wife 
pulled  the  trip-rope  that  opens  the  lock-block  and  drew 
me  in  from  the  edge.  That  's  not  the  first  time  she  's 
been  on  deck  at  the  right  minute.  Once  she  came  up 
a  steeple  to  tell  me  something,  and  found  the  hauling- 
line  smoldering  from  my  helper's  cigarette.  If  that 
line  had  burned  through  it  would  have  dropped  me  to 
the  ground  from  the  steeple-top,  saddle,  lock-block,  and 
all.  The  man  with  the  cigarette  was  so  scared  he  quit 
smoking  for  goocj  and  all." 

Here,  in  reply  to  my  question,  Merrill  explained  the 
working  of  a  lock-block,  which  is  simply  a  pulley  that 


12     CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 


allows  a  fope  to  pass  through  it,  but  will  not  let  it 
go  back.      With   this   block   the   steeple-climber   can 

be  hauled  up  easily, 
but  cannot  fall,  even 
if  the  man  hauling 
should  let  go  the 
rope.  When  it  is  ne- 
cessary to  descend,  a 
pull  on  the  trip-rope 
releases  a  safety-catch 
and  the  saddle  goes 
down. 

"Do  steeple-climb- 
ers always  work  in 
pairs?"  I  asked  him. 

"Usually.    It  would 
be  hard  for  one  man 
to  do  a  steeple  alone. 
There     are     lots     of 
places  where  you  must 
have  some  one  to  fas- 
ten   a    rope    or    hold 
the  end  of  a  plank  or 
pass     you     some- 
thing.    Besides,  it 
would  n't  be  good 
for  a  man's  mind 
to     be     spending 
days     and     days 
upon   steeples   all 
alone.     It  's  bad 
enough     with     a 
partner  to  talk  to. 
That    makes    me 

"'THEN   MY   PARTNER   STOOD  ON   MY  SHOULDERS."'         think     Of         OOr     Old 


THE    STEEPLE-CLIMBER  13 

Dan  O'Brien.  If  I  had  n't  been  up  with  him  one 
day—  "  Merrill  checked  himself  and  changed  the  subject. 

"I  '11  give  you  a  case  where  a  man  alone  could  never 
have  done  the  thing,  I  don't  care  how  clever  a  steeple- 
climber  he  might  be.  It  was  on  St.  Paul's,  New  York, 
after  we  had  finished  the  job  and  taken  everything 
down.  Then  somebody  noticed  that  the  weather-vane 
on  top  of  the  ball  was  n't  turning  properly.  I  knew  in 
a  minute  what  the  matter  was ;  it  was  easy  enough  to 
fix  it,  but  the  thing  was  to  reach  the  weather-vane.  I 
don't  mean  that  the  climb  up  the  steeple  was  anything ; 
we  had  done  that  before ;  but  if  I  tried  to  climb  around 
that  big  ball  again  (it  was  the  same  sort  of  a  wriggling 
business  as  that  over  the  bulging  stones  at  Trinity)  I 
would  be  sure  to  scrape  off  a  lot  of  the  fine  gilding  we 
had  just  put  on.  And  yet  I  could  n't  get  at  the 
weather-vane  without  getting  over  the  ball.  I  studied 
quite  a  while  on  this  little  problem,  and  solved  it  with 
my  partner's  help.  We  both  climbed  the  steeple  as 
far  as  the  ball ;  we  went  up  the  lightning-rod ;  then  we 
roped  ourselves  on  the  steeple-shaft  by  life-lines,  and 
then  my  partner,  that  was  Joe  Lawlor,  stood  on  my 
shoulders  and  did  the  job.  You  see  it  was  easy  enough 
that  way." 

"Easy  enough!"  Think  of  it!  Two  men  clinging 
to  the  point  of  a  steeple.  One  of  them  braces  himself 
with  the  toes  of  his  rubber  shoes  in  crannies  of  the 
stone,  and  the  other,  balancing  on  his  shoulders  like  a 
circus  performer,  does  a  piece  of  work,  no  matter  what, 
with  a  reeling  abyss  all  around  (what  is  looking  over  a 
precipice  compared  to  this?),  and  all  the  time  the  spire 
swaying  back  and  forth  like  a  forest  tree.  And  then 
you  hear  that,  instead  of  getting  a  large  sum  for  such 
an  achievement,  these  men,  taking  it  through  the  year, 
get  scarcely  more  than  ordinary  workmen's  wages. 


II 


HOW    THEY    BLEW    OFF    THE    TOP    OF    A    STEEPLE 
WITH    DYNAMITE 

KNOWN  over  all  Connecticut  was  the  Congrega- 
tional Church  in  Hartford,  that  stood  for  years 
on  Pearl  Street,  and  was  famous  alike  for  the  burning 
words  spoken  beneath  its  roof,  and  the  tall,  straight 
spire  that  reached  above  it;  two  hundred  and  thirty- 
eight  feet  measured  the  drop  from  cross  to  pavement. 
But  churches  pass*  like  other  things,  and  near  the  cen- 
tury-end came  the  decision  by  landowners  and  lease  in- 
terpreters that  this  graceful  length  of  brownstone  and 
the  pile  beneath  it  must  move  off  the  premises,  which 
meant,  of  course,  that  the  steeple  must  come  down,  the 
time  appointed  for  this  demolition  being  August,  1899. 
Now,  the  taking  down  of  a  steeple  two  hundred  and 
thirty-eight  feet  high,  that  rises  on  a  closely  built  city 
street,  is  not  so  simple  a  proceeding  as  might  at  first 
appear.  If  you  suggest  pulling  the  steeple  over,  all 
the  neighbors  cry  out.  They  wish  to  know  where  it  is 
going  to  strike.  Are  you  sure  it  won't  smash  down 
on  their  housetops?  Can  you  make  a  steeple  fall  this 
way  or  that  way,  as  woodmen  make  trees  fall?  How 
do  you  know  you  can?  Besides,  how  are  you  going 
to  hitch  fast  the  rope  that  will  pull  it  over  ?  And  who 
will  climb  with  such  a  rope  to  the  steeple-top  ?  It  must 
be  said  that  there  is  usually  some  young  man  at  hand, 
some  dare-devil  character  of  the  vicinity,  who  is  ready 


THE    STEEPLE-CLIMBER  15 

to  try  the  thing  and  is  positive  he  can  succeed  at  it. 
But,  luckily,  he  seldom  gets  a  chance  to  try. 

"It 's  queer,"  said  Merrill,  telling  me  the  story,  "how 
people  ever  built  a  steeple  like  this  one  without  a  win- 
dow in  it,  of  an  air-passage,  or  anything  for  ventilation. 
Between  the  bell-deck  and  the  cross  there  was  n't  a 
single  opening  from  the  inside  out,  so  I  had  to  break 
my  way  through  up  near  the  top.  What  a  place  for 
a  man  to  work,  squeezed  in  the  point  of  a  stifling  fun- 
nel, with  no  swing  for  his  hammer,  and  no  air  to 
breathe,  and  the  scorch  of  an  August  sun !  After  fif- 
teen minutes  of  it,  my  wrists  and  temples  would  be 
pounding  so  I  'd  have  to  come  down  and  rest. 

"Of  course  the  purpose  of  this  hole  that  I  knocked 
through  the  steeple-top  was  to  make  fast  ropes  and 
pulleys,  so  my  partner  and  I  could  hoist  ourselves  along 
the  outside,  and  not  have  to  climb  up  the  inside  cross- 
beams, which,  I  can  tell  you,  is  a  lively  bit  of  athletics. 
Well,  we  got  our  ropes  fixed  all  right,  about  twenty- 
five  feet  below  the  top,  and  the  'bosun's  saddle'  swung 
below  for  us  to  travel  up  and  down  in,  and  then  we 
made  fast  another  set  of  ropes  and  pulleys  about  fifteen 
feet  higher  up;  this  was  for  hoisting  timber  and  stuff 
that  we  needed." 

"How  did  you  get  up  that  fifteen  feet?"  I  inquired. 

"Worked  up  on  the  stirrups — that  is,  two  nooses 
around  the  steeple,  each  ending  in  a  loop,  one  for  the 
right  foot,  one  for  the  left.  You  stand  in  the  right 
stirrup  and  work  the  left  loop  up,  then  you  stand  in 
the  left  stirrup  and  work  the  right  loop  up.  Sometimes 
in  hard  places  you  have  to  throw  your  nooses  around 
the  shaft  as  a  cowboy  casts  a  rope.  Come  down  some 
day  and  watch  us  work;  you  '11  see  the  whole  thing.", 

To  this  invitation  I  gave  glad  acceptance;  I  cer- 
tainly wished  to  see  this  stirrup-climbing  process. 


1 6     CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 


"The  next  thing,"  continued  Merrill,  "was  to  make 
another  hole  in  the  steeple  through  a  keystone  a  little 

below   our 
first     hole. 
In  this  hole 
we    set    a 
block       of 
Norway  pine 
resting  on  an 
iron   jack.      The 
block  was  about 
a     foot     square 
and    twenty-two 
inches  high,  a  big 
tough  piece,  you 
see,  and  by  screw- 
ing up  the  jack 
we    could    make 

^^^  that  part  as  solid 

as    the    keystone 

was.     We  made 

this  hole  on  the 

east  side  of  the  steeple, 

which   was   the   side   we 

wanted    her    to    fall    on, 

the  only   side   she   could 

fall  on  without  injuring 

something ;  and  we  had  it  figured 

out  so  close  that  we  dug  a  trench 

on  that  side  straight  out  from  the 

steeple's  base,  ten  feet  wide  and 

four  feet  deep,  and  told  people 

we  intended  to  have  the  whole 

1  SOMETIMES     IN     HARD     PLACES     tOp     Of     that     StCCplC,     Say     9.     Idlgtll 
YOU     HAVE     TO      THROW     YOUR  .  _  -        '  ,      "  .       t  ,. 

NOOSES  AROUND  THE  SHAFT."  oi  thirty-hve  tcct  ana  a.  weight  ot 


THE    STEEPLE-CLIMBER  17 

thirty-five  tons,  come  off  at  one  time  and  land  right 
square  in  that  trench  and  nowhere  else.  That  's  what 
we  intended  to  do. 

"Now  began  the  hoisting  of  materials ;  first  a  lot  of 
half-inch  wire  cable,  enough  for  four  turns  around  the 
steeple,  then  eight  sixteen-foot  timbers,  two  inches 
thick  and  a  foot  wide,  then  a  lot  of  maple  wedges. 
We  bandaged  the  steeple  with  the  cable  and  drew  it 
tight  with  tackle.  Then  we  lowered  the  timbers  length- 
wise inside  the  cable,  which  we  could  do  because  the 
steeple  was  an  octagon  with  ornamented  corners,  and 
these  left  spaces  where  the  wire  rope  was  stretched 
around.  Then  we  wedged  fast  the  eight  timbers  so  that 
they  formed  a  sixteen-foot  half-collar  on  the  west  side 
of  the  steeple  just  opposite  our  hole  where  the  jack  was. 
In  other  words,  we  had  the  steeple  shored  in  so  that 
when  we  let  her  go  no  loose  stones  could  fall  on  the 
west  side ;  everything  must  fall  to  the  east. 

"Last  of  all,  we  widened  our  hole  on  the  east  side, 
stripping  away  stones  until  that  whole  side  lay  open  in 
a  half-circular  mouth  about  four  feet  high.  And  in 
this  mouth  were  two  teeth,  one  might  say,  that  held  the 
stone  jaws  apart,  the  iron  jack  biting  into  the  block 
of  Norway  pine.  On  those  two  now  came  the  stee- 
ple's weight,  or,  anyhow,  one  half  of  it.  To  knock 
out  one  of  these  teeth  would  be  to  leave  the  east  side 
of  the  steeple  unsupported,  with  the  result  that  it  must 
topple  over  in  that  direction  and  fall  to  the  ground. 
Anyway,  that  was  our  reasoning,  and  it  seemed  sound 
enough;  the  only  question  was  how  we  were  going  to 
knock  out  that  block  of  Norway  pine. 

"Well  the  day  of  the  test  came,  and  I  guess  five  thou- 
sand people  were  there  to  see  what  would  happen. 
Everybody  was  discussing  it,  and  farmers  had  driven 
in  for  miles  just  as  they  do  for  a  hanging.  You  under- 


1 8     CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

stand  I  was  under  the  orders  of  the  contractor,  and  he 
had  his  own  plan  about  getting  the  block  out.  He 
proposed  to  hitch  a  rope  to  it,  drop  this  rope  to  a 
donkey-engine  in  the  yard,  and  set  the  engine  winding 
up  the  rope.  He  said  the  block  would  have  to  come 
out  then  and  the  steeple  fall.  I  agreed  that  the  block 
might  come  out,  but  was  afraid  it  would  tip  up  through 
the  strain  coming  at  an  angle,  and  throw  the  steeple 
over  to  the  west,  just  the  way  we  did  n't  want  it  to  go. 
And  if  that  steeple  ever  fell  to  the  west,  there  was  no 
telling  how  many  people  it  would  kill  in  the  crowd, 
without  counting  damage  to  houses. 

"However,  the  contractor  was  boss,  and  he  stuck  to 
it  his  way  was  right,  so  we  hitched  the  engine  to  the 
block  and  set  her  going.  She  puffed  and  tugged  a 
little,  and  then  snapped  the  rope.  We  got  another 
rope,  and  she  broke  that  too.  Then  we  got  a  stronger 
rope,  and  the  engine  just  kicked  herself  around  the 
yard  and  had  lots  of  fun,  but  the  block  never  budged. 
All  that  morning  we  tried  one  scheme  after  another  to 
make  that  engine  pull  the  block  out,  but  we  might  as 
well  have  hitched  a  rope  to  the  church ;  the  steeple's 
weight  was  too  much  for  us.  And  all  the  time  the 
crowd  was  getting  bigger  and  bigger,  until  the  police 
could  hardly  manage  it. 

"Finally  the  contractor,  being  very  mad  and  quite 
anxious,  said  he  'd  be  hanged  if  he  could  get  the  block 
out,  and  for  me  to  try  my  scheme,  and  do  it  quick,  for 
some  men  were  going  about  saying  the  thing  was  dan- 
gerous and  ought  to  be  stopped.  He  did  n't  have 
to  speak  twice  before  I  was  on  my  way  up  that  steeple 
carrying  an  inch  auger,  a  fifty-foot  fuse,  and  a  stick 
of  dynamite — I  'd  had  them  ready  for  hours.  It  's 
queer  how  people  get  wind  of  a  thing;  the  crowd 
seemed  to  know  in  a  minute  that  I  was  going  to  use 
dynamite,  and  before  I  was  twenty  feet  up  the  ladder 


THE    STEEPLE-CLIMBER  19 

a  police  officer  was  after  me,  ordering  me  down.  I 
went  right  ahead,  pretending  not  to  hear,  and  when 
I  got  to  the  bell-deck  he  was  puffing  along  ten  yards 
below  me.  I  swung  into  my  'bosun's  saddle'  and 
began  pulling  myself  up  outside  the  steeple,  and  I  guess 
the  whole  five  thousand  people  around  the  church  bent 
back  their  heads  to  watch  me. 

"As  soon  as  I  began  to  rise  in  the  saddle  I  knew  I 
was  all  right,  for  I  coiled  up  the  hauling-line  on  my 
arm  so  the  officer  could  n't  follow  me.  All  he  could 
do  was  stand  on  the  bell-deck  and  gape  after  me  like 
the  rest  and  growl. 

"When  I  reached  the  block  I  bored  a  six-inch  hole 
into  her  at  a  downward  slant,  and  in  this  I  put  some 
crumbs  of  dynamite, — not  much,  only  about  half  a  tea- 
spoonful, — and  then  I  stuck  in  the  fuse  and  tamped 
her  solid  with  sand.  Then  I  lit  the  other  end,  dropped 
it  down  inside  the  steeple,  and  slid  down  the  rope  as 
fast  as  I  could,  yelling  to  the  officer  that  I  'd  touched 
her  off.  You  ought  to  have  seen  him  get  out  of  that 
steeple!  He  never  waited  to  arrest  me  or  anything; 
he  had  pressing  business  on  the  ground ! 

"By  the  time  I  got  down  you  could  see  a  little  trail 
of  bluish  smoke  drifting  away  from  the  hole,  and 
there  was  a  hush  over  the  crowd,  except  for  the  police 
trying  to  make  them  stand  back  behind  the  ropes.  I 
don't  know  as  I  ever  saw  a  bigger  crowd;  the  street 
was  jammed  for  blocks  either  way.  Well,  sir,  that  was 
a  queer  acting  fuse.  It  smoked  and  smoked  for  about 
ten  minutes,  and  then  the  smoke  stopped.  The  people 
began  to  laugh — they  said  it  had  gone  out;  and  the 
contractor  was  nearly  crazy :  he  was  sure  I  had  made 
another  failure.  I  did  n't  know  what  to  think;  I  just 
waited.  We  waited  ten  minutes,  twelve  minutes;  it 
seemed  like  an  hour,  but  nobody  dared  go  up  to  see 
what  the  matter  was.  Then  suddenly  the  explosion 


20    CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

came — no   louder   than   a  pistol-crack,    for   dynamite 
is  n't  noisy,  but  it  stirred  me  more  than  a  cannon. 

"  'Start  your  engine !'  I  shouted,  and  the  little 
dummy  had  just  time  to  wind  up  half  a  turn  of  the 
hitch-line  when  the  old  steeple-top  swayed  and  broke 
clean  in  two,  right  where  the  block  was,  and  the  whole 
upper  length  fell  like  one  piece,  fell  to  the  east  just  as 
we  had  planned  it,  and  landed  in  the  trench,  every 
stone  of  it ;  there  was  n't  a  piece  as  big  as  your  finger- 
nail, sir,  outside  that  trench.  And  while  she  was  fall- 
ing I  don't  know  how  many  kodaks  were  snapped  in 
the  hope  of  getting  a  picture;  men  and  women  with 
cameras  had  been  waiting  for  hours  on  the  roofs  of 
high  buildings,  and  two  or  three  of  them  actually 
caught  a  picture  of  the  steeple-top  as  it  hung  in  the  air 
for  a  fraction  of  a  second  at  right  angles  to  the  base." 


PICTURE   OF  THE    FALLING    STEEPLE,   PHOTOGRAPHED    JUST   AFTER 

THE  DYNAMITE   EXPLODED.      THE   FALLING   SECTION   WAS 

35   FEET   IN    LENGTH   AND  WEIGHED   35  TONS. 


Ill 


THE    GREATEST    DANGER    TO    A    STEEPLE-CLIMBER 
LIES    IN    BEING    STARTLED 

IT  appears  that  professional  steeple-climbers  are  quiet- 
mannered  men,  with  a  certain  gentleness  of  voice 
(like  deaf  people)  that  impresses  one  far  more  than 
any  strident  boasting.  This  habit  of  silence  they  form 
from  being  silent  so  much  aloft.  And  when  they  do 
speak  it  is  in  a  low  tone,  because  that  is  the  least  star- 
tling to  a  man  as  he  swings  over  some  reeling  gulf. 
Next  to  an  actual  disaster  (which  usually  kills  out- 
right and  painlessly)  what  a  steeple-climber  most 
dreads  is  being  startled.  This  was  explained  to  me  in 
one  of  our  many  talks  by  "Steeple  Bob,"  famous^ver 
the  land  for  daring  feats,  but  never  reckless  ones.  How 
plainly  I  call  up  his  pale,  serious  face  and  the  massive 
shoulders,  somewhat  bent,  and  the  forearm  with  mus- 
cles to  impress  a  prize-fighter!  Pleasant  to  note  that 
Merrill  uses  excellent  English. 

"Did  you  ever  have  an  impulse  to  jump  off  a  stee- 
ple?" I  questioned,  recalling  the  sensations  of  many 
people  in  looking  down  even  from  a  housetop. 

"I  've  kept  pretty  free  from  that,"  said  he;  "but 
there  's  no  doubt  climbing  steeples  does  tell  on  a  man's 
nerves.  Now,  there  was  Dan  O'Brien;  he  had  an 
impulse  to  jump  off  a  steeple  one  day,  and  a  strong 
impulse,  too.  He  went  mad  on  one  of  the  tallest  spires 
in  Cincinnati ;  right  at  the  top  of  it." 

21 


22     CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

"Went  mad?" 

"Yes,  sir,  raving  mad,  and  I  was  by  him  when  it  hap- 
pened. I  forget  whether  the  church  was  Baptist  or 
Presbyterian,  but  I  know  it  stood  on  Sixth  Street,  near 
Vine,  and  there  was  a  big  hand  on  top  of  the  steeple, 
with  the  forefinger  pointing  to  heaven.  We  were  put- 
ting fresh  gilding  on  this  hand.  I  was  working  on 
the  thumb  side  and  O'Brien  on  the  little-finger  side, 
both  of  us  standing  on  tiny  stagings  about  the  size  of  a 
chair-seat,  and  both  of  us  made  fast  to  the  steeple  by 
life-lines  under  our  arms.  That  's  an  absolute  rule 
in  climbing  steeples — never  to  do  the  smallest  thing 
unless  you  're  secured  by  a  life-line.  It  was  coming 
on  dark,  and  I  was  hurrying  to  get  the  gold  leaf  on, 
because  we  'd  given  the  hand  a  fresh  coat  of  sizing  that 
would  be  dry  before  morning.  We  had  n't  spoken  for 
some  time,  when  suddenly  I  heard  a  laugh  from 
O'Brien's  side  that  sent  a  shiver  down  my  spine.  Did 
you  ever  hear  a  crazy  man  laugh?  Well,  if  ever  you 
do,  you  '11  remember  it.  I  looked  at  him  and  saw  by 
his  face  that  something  was  wrong. 

"  'What  are  you  doing?'  said  I. 

"He  answered  very  polite  and  steady  like,  but  his 
tone  was  queer :  'I  'm  trying  to  figure  out  how  long  it 
would  take  a  man  to  get  down  if  he  went  the  fastest 
way.' 

"I  thought  I  had  better  keep  him  in  a  good  humor, 
so  I  said:  'I  '11  tell  you  what,  Dan,  you  brace  up  and 
get  this  gold  on,  and  then  we  '11  race  to  the  ground  in 
our  saddles.' 

"  'That  's  a  fair  idea,'  said  he  in  a  shrill  voice,  'but 
I  Ve  got  a  better  one.  We  '11  race  down  without  any 
saddles;  yes,  sir,  without  any  lines,  without  a  blamed 
thing.' 

"  'Don't  be  a  fool,  Dan.      What  you  want  to  do 


THE    STEEPLE-CLIMBER  23 

is    to   get   that   gold   on — quick.'      I    tried   to    speak 
sharp. 

"  'No,  sir ;  I  'm  going  to  jump,  and  so  are  you.' 
"I  caught  his  eye  just  then  and  saw  it  was  n't  any 
time  to  bother  about  gold  leaf.  I  reached  up  and 
eased  the  hitch  of  my  line  around  the  hand  so  I  could 
swing  toward  him.  I  knew  if  I  once  got  my  grip  on 
him  he  would  n't  make  any  more  trouble.  But  I  'd 
never  had  a  crazy  man  to  deal  with,  and  I  did  n't 
realize  how  tricky  and  quick  they  are.  While  I  was 
working  around  to  his  side  and  thinking  he  did  n't 
notice  it,  he  was  laying  for  me  out  of  the  corner  of  his 
eye,  and  the  first  thing  I  knew  he  had  me  by  the  throat 
and  everything  was  turning  black.  I  let  go  of  the  line 
and  dropped  back  on  my  saddle-board  helpless,  and  if  it 
had  n't  been  for  blind  luck  I  guess  the  people  down 
below  would  have  got  their  money's  worth  in  about  a 
minute.  But  my  hand  struck  on  the  tool-box  as  he 
pressed  me  back,  and  I  had  just  strength  enough  left  to 
shut  my  fingers  on  the  first  tool  I  touched  and  strike 
at  him  with  it.  The  tool  happened  to  be  a  monkey- 
wrench,  and  when  a  man  gets  a  clip  on  the  head  with 
a  thing  like  that  he  's  pretty  apt  to  keep  still  for  a 
while.  And  that  's  what  O'Brien  did.  He  keeled 
over  and  lay  there,  and  I  did,  too,  until  my  head  got 
steady.  Even  then  I  guess  we  'd  both  have  fallen  if 
it  had  n't  been  for  the  life-lines. 

"The  rest  was  simple  enough  after  I  got  my  senses 
back.  Dan  was  unconscious,  and  all  I  had  to  do  was 
fasten  a  rope  to  him  and  lower  away.  They  took  care 
of  him  down  below  until  the  ambulance  came,  and  he 
spent  that  night  in  a  hospital.  And  he  's  spent  most 
of  his  years  since  then  in  an  asylum,  his  mind  all  gone 
except  for  short  periods,  when  he  comes  to  himself 
again,  and  then  he  always  starts  out  to  put  an  end  to 


24     CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

me.  That  last  impulse  to  destroy  me  has  never  left 
him." 

It  was  after  this  that  I  learned  about  that  other  dan- 
ger to  steeple-climbers,  of  being  startled.  Merrill  says 
that  men  of  his  craft,  whether  they  realize  it  or  not, 
work  under  constant  nervous  strain.  However  calm  a 
steeple-climber  may  think  himself,  his  body  is  always 
afraid,  his  muscles  are  always  tense,  his  clutch  on 
ropes  and  stones  is  always  harder,  two  or  three  times 
harder,  than  the  need  is ;  his  knees  hug  what  comes  be- 
tween them  so  tightly  that  it  hurts,  even  when  they 
might  safely  be  relaxed.  That  is  the  trouble,  a  steeple- 
climber  cannot  relax  his  body  or  control  its  instinctive 
shrinking.  It  is  not  looking  down  into  the  gulf  around 
him  that  he  minds  (the  climber  who  cannot  do  that 
with  indifference  is  unfit  for  the  business)  ;  what  he 
sees  he  can  cope  with ;  it  is  what  he  cannot  see  that  does 
the  mischief — what  he  fears  vaguely.  And  a  sudden 
noise,  an  unexpected  movement  may  throw  him  into 
all  but  panic.  So  the  veteran  climber,  swinging  at  the 
steeple-top  opposite  his  partner,  is  careful  to  say  in  a 
low  tone,  "I  'm  going  to  lower  my  saddle,"  before  he 
does  lower  it;  or,  "I  'm  going  to  strike  a  match,"  before 
he  strikes  it. 

Sometimes  a  new  helper  at  the  hauling-line  down  on 
the  bell-deck  will  shift  his  place  from  weariness  or 
thoughtlessness,  and  let  the  line  move  up  an  inch  or 
two,  which  drops  the  saddle  an  inch  or  two  far  aloft — 
drops  it  suddenly  with  a  jerk.  It  's  a  little  thing,  yet 
the  climber's  heart  would  not  pound  harder  were  the 
whole  steeple  falling.  Merrill  told  me  that  one  of  his 
greatest  frights  came  from  the  simple  brushing  against 
his  legs  of  a  rope  pulled  without  a  word  by  a  careless 
partner.  To  Merrill's  nerves,  all  a-quiver,  this  was 
not  a  rope,  but  some  nameless  catastrophe  to  over- 


THE  STEEPLE-CLIMBER  25 

whelm  him.  He  knew  only  that  something  had  moved 
where  nothing  had  any  business  to  move,  that  some- 
thing had  touched  him  where  nothing  was.  A  steeple- 
climber  is  like  a  child  in  the  dark — in  terror  of  the 
unknown.  In  all  the  world,  perhaps,  there  is  no  one 


LOOKING  FROM   THE    GROUND   UPWARD   AT   ST.  PAUL'S   SPIRE, 
BROADWAY,  NEW  YORK   CITY. 


so  utterly  alone  as  he,  swinging  hour  after  hour  on 
his  steeple-top.  The  aeronaut  has  with  him  a  living, 
surging  creature — his  balloon;  the  diver  feels  always 
the  teeming  life  of  the  waters ;  but  this  man,  lifted  into 
still  air,  poised  on  a  point  where  nothing  comes  or  goes, 
where  nothing  moves,  where  nothing  makes  a  sound — 
he,  in  very  truth,  is  alone. 

"It  's  always  the  little  things  that  frighten  you,"  re- 


26     CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

fleeted  Merrill,  "not  the  big  things.  I  '11  give  you  an 
instance.  When  I  went  up  inside  St.  Paul's  steeple 
the  first  time  (I  wanted  to  inspect  the  beams,  and  see 
how  the  dowel  was  anchored)  I  got  into  a  tight  place 
that  might  well  frighten  a  man.  I  got  squeezed  fast 
between  timbers  that  fill  nearly  all  the  slender  top  space, 
and  could  n't  get  up  or  down,  but  just  hung  there, 
breathing  air  full  of  dust  and  calling  for  help.  I  called 
three  quarters  of  an  hour  before  any  one  came,  and 
then  it  was  only  by  accident.  But  I  was  n't  frightened. 
On  the  other  hand,  a  day  or  two  later,  when  I  was  mak- 
ing fast  a  rope  outside  (I  was  just  under  the  ball  that 
holds  the  weather-vane)  I  got  a  bad  start  from  noth- 
ing at  all.  I  had  my  arms  around  the  spindle  of  the 
steeple,  making  a  hitch,  and  my  head  pressed  against 
the  copper  sheathing,  when  I  heard  a  most  unearthly 
screech.  I  guess  the  shock  of  that  thing  did  me  five 
hundred  dollars'  worth  of  harm — shortened  my  life 
days  enough  to  earn  five  hundred  dollars  in.  And 
what  do  you  think  it  was?  The  weather-vane  had 
turned  a  little  in  the  wind  and  creaked  on  its  bearings, 
that  's  all.  It  does  n't  seem  as  if  that  ought  to  scare 
a  man,  does  it?" 

There  was  something  quite  touching,  I  thought,  in 
the  humble  frankness  of  this  big-shouldered  man. 
Yes,  he  had  been  afraid,  he  whose  business  it  was  to 
fear  nothing,  afraid  of  some  squeaking  copper,  and 
his  face  seemed  to  say  that  there  are  things  about  stee- 
ples not  so  easily  explained,  things  not  even  to  be 
talked  about.  And  abruptly,  as  by  an  effort,  he  left 
this  part  of  the  subject  and  told  a  funny  story  of  his 
adventures  coming  home  late  one  night  without  a  key, 
and  getting  in  by  way  of  the  roof  and  an  iron  pipe ;  a 
simple  enough  climb  had  he  not  been  taken  for  a  "pur- 
glaire"  by  an  irate  German  lodger,  who  appeared  in 


THE  STEEPLE-CLIMBER  27 

nightgown  and  phlegmatic  fright,  and  vowed  he  would 
"haf  him  a  revolfer,  a  skelf-skooter,  in  the  morning." 

This  effort  at  diversion  turned  Merrill  into  gaiety 
for  a  moment,  but  straightway  memory  brought  back 
the  somber  theme. 

"I  '11  give  you  another  case,"  said  he,  changing  again 
abruptly,  "where  I  was  n't  frightened,  but  should  have 
been.  It  was  out  in  Chicago,  and  two  of  us  were  on 
a  staging  hung  down  the  front  of  a  clothing  factory. 
We  were  painting  the  walls.  My  partner  had  made 
his  end  of  the  staging  fast,  and  I  had  made  mine  fast. 
Perhaps  if  I  'd  been  longer  in  the  business  I  would  have 
taken  more  notice  how  he  secured  his  rope,  for  it 
meant  safety  to  me  as  well  as  him,  and  I  knew  he  'd 
been  drinking,  but  I  supposed  it  was  all  right.  Well, 
it  was  n't  all  right;  his  rope  held  for  three  or  four 
hours,  and  then,  at  just  about  eleven  o'clock,  it  slipped, 
and  the  staging  fell  from  under  vis.  We  were  six 
stories  up,  and  right  below  were  the  sidewalk  flag- 
stones. That  's  the  time  I  ought  to  have  been  fright- 
ened, but  I  only  said  to  myself,  'Hello!  this  thing  's 
going  down,'  and  caught  the  window-ledge  in  front  of 
me.  Then  I  hung  there,  wondering  if  I  could  pull 
myself  up  or  if  any  one  would  come  to  help  me.  I 
called  out  not  very  loud,  and  I  was  n't  excited.  Pretty 
soon  I  saw  I  could  n't  pull  myself  up,  for  I  had  a  poor 
hold  with  my  fingers,  and  the  ledge  was  smooth  stone. 
Then  I  saw  they  'd  have  to  hurry  if  they  were  going 
to  pull  me  in.  Then  I  did  n't  care.  I — I — " 

"You  fell?" 

He  nodded. 

"What,  six  stories  down?" 

He  nodded  again.  "The  thing  that  saved  me  was 
an  awning  over  the  sidewalk.  Some  man  across  the 
way  saw  me  hanging  from  the  window,  and  he  ran 


28     CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

over  quickly  and  let  the  awning  down.  I  'd  like  to 
shake  that  man  by  the  hand,  but  I  never  knew  who  he 
was.  When  I  came  to  myself  I  was  at  the  hospital 
done  up  in  plaster,  and  I  stayed  there  nine  months." 

"Badly  hurt?"  I  asked,  shrinking. 

Merrill  smiled.  "It  did  n't  do  me  any  particular 
good.  I  'm  a  big,  strong  fellow  now,  but  I  was  n't 
much  after  that  fall.  Both  my  legs  were  broken.  Both 
my  arms  were  broken.  My  right  shoulder  and  right 
wrist  were  dislocated,  and — let  's  see.  Oh,  yes,  I  had 
three  ribs  torn  away  from  the  breast-bone." 

"And  your — " 

"My  partner?  Poor  lad!  You  would  n't  care  to 
hear  how  they  found  him.  They  laid  him  away  kindly 
the  next  day." 

He  smiled  in  a  sort  of  appealing  way,  and  then  came 
the  worn,  wistful  look  I  had  noticed,  and  his  forehead 
lines  deepened.  I  fancy  all  men  who  follow  steeple- 
climbing  get  those  strained,  anxious  eyes. 


EXPERIENCE    OF    AN    AMATEUR    CLIMBING    TO    A 
STEEPLE-TOP 

IT  came  to  my  knowledge,  one  bracing  day  in  Octo- 
ber, that  "Steeple  Bob"  had  agreed  to  "do"  that 
famous  Brooklyn  Church  of  the  Pilgrims,  with  its 
queer,  crooked  spire  and  big  brass  ball,  a  landmark 
from  the  river  on  Columbia  Heights. 

"It  's  one  of  those  easy  jobs  that  are  the  hardest," 
said  Merrill.  "If  you  want  to  see  us  use  the  stirrups 
come  over." 

That  was  exactly  what  I  did  want  to  see,  this  puz- 
zling stirrup  process  which  allows  a  man  to  lift  himself 
by  his  boot-straps,  as  it  were,  up  the  last  and  narrow- 
est and  most  dangerous  length  of  a  steeple;  so  I  agreed 
to  be  there. 

"If  you  like,  you  can  go  up  on  the  swing  yourself !" 
said  Merrill,  with  the  air  of  conferring  a  favor.  I  ex- 
pressed my  thanks  as  I  would  to  a  lion-tamer  offering 
me  the  hospitality  of  his  cages,  then  asked  how  he 
meant  that  easy  jobs  are  the  hardest. 

"Why,  easy  jobs  make  a  man  careless,  and  that  gets 
him  into  trouble.  Another  thing,  little  old  churches 
look  easy,  but  they  're  apt  to  be  treacherous.  Now, 
this  steeple  on  the  Church  of  the  Pilgrims  is  built  of 
wood,  with  loose  shingles  on  it,  and  a  tumble-down  iron 
lightning-rod,  and  rickety  beams,  and  shaky  ladders, 
and — well,  you  feel  all  the  time  as  if  you  were  walking 

29 


GILDING  A  CHURCH  CROSS,   ABOVE   NEW  YORK  CITY. 


THE  STEEPLE-CLIMBER  31 

on  eggs.  It  's  just  the  kind  of  a  steeple  that  killed 
young  Rornaine  about  a  month  ago." 

Of  course  I  asked  for  the  story  of  young  Romaine, 
and  was  told  of  certain  climbers  who  advertise  their 
skill  by  using  a  steeple-top  for  acrobatic  feats  that  have 
nothing  to  do  with  repairing.  Upon  such  Merrill 
frowned  severely. 

"Romaine  was  a  fine  athlete,"  said  he,  "and  a  fear- 
less man,  but  he  went  too  far.  He  would  stretch  out 
on  his  stomach  across  the  top  of  a  steeple,  and  balance 
there  without  touching  hands  or  knees,  and  he  'd  do 
all  sorts  of  circus  tricks  on  lightning-rods  and  weather- 
vanes  and  flagpoles — anything  for  notoriety.  I  told 
him  he  'd  get  killed  sure  some  day,  but  he  laughed  at 
me.  Well,  it  was  n't  a  week  after  I  warned  him  when 
he  was  killed.  He  climbed  an  old  lightning-rod  with- 
out testing  it  (it  was  on  a  little  church  up  at  Cold 
Spring,  New  York),  and  just  as  he  was  reaching  the 
steeple-top,  with  a  whole  town  watching  him,  the  end 
of  the  rod  pulled  out,  and  he  swung  off  with  it,  ripping 
out  every  dowel,  like  the  buttons  off  a  coat,  right  down 
to  the  ground — smash.  Poor  fellow,  when  I  read  the 
news  I  left  my  job  at  Trinity  and  took  the  first  train 
up  to  bury  him." 

This  sad  story  lingered  in  my  mind  that  night,  and 
was  there  still  the  next  afternoon  as  I  drew  near 
the  Church  of  the  Pilgrims  to  witness  the  first  day's 
climbing.  Already,  at  a  distance,  I  knew  that  the  men 
were  at  work  from  the  upbent  heads  of  people  on  the 
street  who  stared  and  pointed.  And  presently  I  made 
out  two  white  figures  on  the  steeple,  one  swinging  about 
fifteen  feet  below  the  ball,  the  other  standing  against 
the  shingled  side  without  any  support  that  I  could  see. 
Up  the  old  tower  (inside)  I  made  my  way,  and  two 
ladders  beyond  the  "bell-deck"  came  upon  Walter 


32     CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

Tyghe,  "Steeple  Bob's"  assistant,  astride  of  a  stone 
saddle  on  one  of  the  four  peaks  where  the  tower  ends 
and  the  steeple  begins.  There  was  a  clear  drop  of  a 
hundred  feet  all  around  him.  He  was  "tending"  the 
two  men  aloft,  as  witnessed  a  couple  of  ropes  dangling 
by  him.  It  was  two  jerks  to  come  down  and  one  to 
go  up.  Were  he  to  lose  his  balance  and  let  go  the 
hauling-rope,  the  men  on  the  swing  would  instantly  be 
killed,  as  they  had  no  "lock-blocks"  on. 

"Come  out  here,"  said  Walter,  "there  's  plenty  of 
room,"  and,  thus  encouraged,  I  straddled  the  peak,  and 
we  sat  face  to  face,  as  two  men  might  sit  on  a  child's 
rocking-horse,  while  the  tower  pigeons  circled  beneath 
us,  alarmed  at  this  intrusion.  Far  down  on  the  side- 
walk were  little  faces  of  distorted  people ;  far  up  at  the 
steeple-top  were  legs  kicking  at  ropes.  And  off  over 
red  housetops  was  the  river,  and  the  great  towers  of 
New  York  spread  with  silver  plumes  by  the  steam  jets. 

"Now  you  can  see  the  stirrups  working,"  said  Wal- 
ter, and,  looking  up,  I  saw  a  figure  swing  back  from 
the  steeple,  an  arm  shoot  out,  and  a  length  of  rope  go 
wriggling  around  the  shaft,  cast  like  a  lasso.  Then  the 
rope  was  drawn  into  a  noose,  and  the  noose  hauled 
tight.  The  legs  kicked,  the  figure  hitched  itself  up 
about  a  foot,  and  again  the  rope  was  cast  (another 
rope),  and  a  second  noose  still  higher  made  secure. 
That  is  all  there  is  to  it.  The  steeple-climber  stands 
in  a  stirrup  held  by  one  noose  while  he  lassoes  the 
shaft  above  him  with  another  noose,  supporting  another 
stirrup  on  which  he  presently  stands.  And  so,  foot 
by  foot,  the  climber  rises,  shifting  noose  and  stirrup 
at  each  change,  resting  now  on  one,  now  on  the  other, 
and  finally  reaching  the  cross,  or  ball,  or  weather-vane 
at  the  very  top. 

"That  's  Joe  Lawlor  chuckin'  the  rope,"  explained 


THE  STEEPLE-CLIMBER  33 

Walter;  "Merrill,  he  's  on  the  swing.  Say,  Lawlor  's 
a  wonder  at  rigging.  He  can  do  anything  with  ropes. 
He  's  the  feller  that  climbs  up  the  front  of  a  house  with 
suckers  on  his  feet." 

Of  this  fact  I  took  note,  and  then  inquired  if  I 
could  n't  get  up  further  inside  the  steeple,  so  as  to  be 
nearer  the  men.  Walter  said  I  could  climb  ladders  up  to 
where  they  had  punched  a  hole  through  for  the  rope  to 
hold  the  block  and  falls,  and  I  tried  it.  Alas !  when  I 
got  there,  after  breathing  dust  and  squeezing  between 
beams,  I  found  that  I  could  see  nothing.  I  was  almost 
at  the  steeple-top,  and  could  hear  Merrill,  through  the 
wooden  shell,  humming  a  tune  as  he  worked,  but  I  was 
further  away  than  before. 

"Hello  in  there!"  came  a  voice.  "Don't  monkey 
with  that  line."  And  it  came  to  me  that  this  rope, 
reaching  down  by  me  from  yonder  little  hole  (the  one 
knocked  through),  held  the  block  which  held  the  swing 
which  held  the  man.  And  an  accident  to  this  rope 
would  mean  instant  death.  I  touched  it,  and  drew  my 
hand  away,  as  one  might  touch  some  animal  through 
the  cage  bars,  and  I  felt  like  saying,  "Good  little  rope !" 

It  was  coming  on  to  dark  now,  and  we  all  went  home 
together,  over  the  bridge  and  up  the  avenues,  talking  of 
steeples  the  while.  And  Lawlor  explained  the  action 
of  his  suckers  in  climbing  walls,  which  is  precisely  that 
of  a  boy's  sucker  in  lifting  a  brick.  The  big  climbing- 
leathers,  well  soaked  in  oil,  are  pressed  alternately 
against  the  stones,  the  right  leg  resting  on  one  while 
the  left  leg  presses  the  other  against  the  wall  a  step 
higher.  And  so  you  walk  right  up  the  building  or 
church  or  flagpole,  and  the  smoother  the  surface  the 
easier  you  go  up.  In  fact,  if  the  surface  is  rough  you 
cannot  use  the  suckers  at  all,  as  the  air  gets  under  and 
prevents  their  holding. 

3 


34     CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

Then  the  men  spoke  of  various  jobs  aloft  that  called 
up  memories.  Merrill  told  of  cleaning  the  fifteen-foot 
Diana  statue  on  the  Madison  Square  Garden  tower. 
"It  's  hard  getting  over  her,"  he  said,  "because  she  's 
so  blamed  smooth.  I  guess  I  took  three  quarts  of  rust 
out  of  her  ball-bearings.  You  know  she  's  a  weather- 
vane,  and  turns  with  the  wind."  I  wondered  how 
many  New-Yorkers  who  see  the  Diana  every  day  of 
their  lives  have  ever  dwelt  on  the  fact  that  she  turns. 

Talking  of  weather-vanes  reminded  my  friends  of 
a  ticklish  job  they  did  on  St.  Paul's  steeple,  in  New 
York,  when  Merrill,  standing  under  the  ball,  held  Law- 
lor  on  his  giant  shoulders  so  that  Joe  could  lift  off 
the  weather-vane  on  top  and  ease  the  shaft  where  it 
had  jammed.  With  Lawlor's  weight  and  the  weather- 
vane's  weight,  "Steeple  Bob"  held  four  hundred  pounds 
on  his  shoulders  during  those  important  minutes,  and, 
it  might  almost  be  said,  stood  on  the  dizzy  edge  of  no- 
thing while  he  did  it. 

Finally,  Lawlor  expressed  the  opinion  that  there 
is  n't  any  meaner  job  in  the  business  than  a  chimney. 

"A  chimney?"  said  I. 

"That 's  what.  I  mean  one  o'  them  big  ones  you  see 
on  factories.  We  have  to  scrape  'em  and  paint  'em 
just  like  steeples,  and  that  means  climbing  up  the  whole 
length  inside.  The  climbing  's  easy  enough  on  bolts 
and  braces,  but  it 's  something  fierce  the  air  you  breathe. 
Why,  I  've  gone  up  a  two-hundred-and-forty-foot  chim- 
ney with  a  five-foot  opening  at  the  bottom,  and  found 
the  soot  so  thick  about  half-way  up — so  thick,  sir,  that 
I  've  been  almost  stuck  in  it.  Yes,  sir,  just  had  to 
shove  my  head  into  an  eight-inch  hole  and  bore  through 
black  stuff,  beds  of  it.  And  mind,  not  a  hole  for  air  as 
big  as  a  pin-head  from  bottom  to  top." 

After  bidding  the  men  good  night  I  reflected,  with  a 


THE  STEEPLE-CLIMBER  35 

kind  of  shame,  that  I  had  drawn  back  from  daring  only 
once  what  they  dare  every  clay,  what  they  must  dare 
for  their  living.  And  I  reasoned  myself  into  a  feeling 
that  it  was  my  duty  under  the  circumstances  to  go  up 
that  steeple  on  the  swing,  as  Merrill  had  proposed. 
Having  begun  this  investigation,  I  must  see  it  through ; 
and  in  this  mind  I  went  to  the  church  again  the  next 
day. 

I  found  all  hands  on  the  "bell-deck"  spreading  out 
packets  of  patent  gilding  for  the  ball  which  awaited  its 
new  dress,  all  sticky  from  a  fresh  coat  of  sizing.  Law- 
lor  remarked  that  there  was  better  gold  in  these  little 
yellow  squares  than  in  a  wedding-ring.  "It  's  twenty- 
four  carats  fine,"  said  he,  "and  about  as  thick  as  a 
cobweb." 

As  to  my  going  up  on  the  swing  there  was  no  diffi- 
culty. Lawlor  would  go  first,  and  be  there  to  keep  me 
in  good  heart,  for  they  say  it  is  not  well  for  a  novice  to 
be  at  a  steeple-top  alone.  Merrill  would  see  to  the 
lashings,  and  Walter  would  give  a  hand  at  the  hauling- 
line.  Thus  all  conditions  favored  my  ascent ;  even  the 
sun  smiled,  and  after  taking  off  coat  and  hat  I  was 
ready.  There  we  were  at  the  top  of  the  tower,  and  at 
the  base  of  the  steeple  Lawlor,  red-faced  and  red- 
shirted,  preparing  to  ascend ;  Merrill,  pale,  as  he  always 
is,  but  powerful,  standing  at  the  ropes ;  and  I,  in  shirt- 
sleeves and  bareheaded,  watching  Walter  make  a  little 
harness  for  my  kodak. 

After  a  time  Lawlor,  having  reached  the  top,  called 
down  something,  and  Merrill  answered.  It  was  my 
turn  now.  I  climbed  out  through  a  small  window  and 
stood  on  the  ledge,  while  "Steeple  Bob"  dropped  the 
swing  noose  over  my  head  and  proceeded  to  lash  me 
fast  to  seat  and  ropes. 

"That  's  in  case  a  suicidal  impulse  should  get  hold 


36     CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

of  you !"  he  said,  smiling,  but  meaning  it.  "Now,  keep 
this  rope  between  your  legs,  and  work  your  hands  up 
along  it  as  we  lift  you.  It 's  anchored  to  St.  Peter." 

Then  he  explained  how  I  was  to  press  my  toes  against 
the  steeple  side,  so  as  to  keep  my  knees  from  barking 
on  the  shingles. 

"And  don't  look  down  at  all,"  he  told  me.  "Just 
watch  your  ropes  and  take  it  easy.  Are  you  ready?" 

At  this  moment  Walter  said  something  in  a  low  tone, 
and  Merrill  asked  me  to  lend  him  my  knife.  I  handed 
it  out,  and  he  stuck  it  in  his  pocket.  "You  don't  need 
this  now,"  said  he,  and  a  moment  later  the  pulley  ropes 
tightened  and  my  small  swing-board  lifted  under  me. 
I  was  rising. 

"Shove  off  there  with  your  toes !"  he  cried.  "Take 
short  steps.  Put  your  legs  wider  apart.  Wider  yet. 
You  don't  have  to  pull  on  the  rope.  Just  slide  your 
hands  along.  Now  you  're  going !" 

I  saw  nothing  but  the  steeple  side  in  front  of  me,  and 
the  life-line  hanging  down  like  a  bell-rope  between  my 
spread  legs,  and  the  pulley  block  creaking  by  my  head, 
and  the  toes  of  my  shoes  as  I  pressed  them  against  the 
shingles  step  by  step.  It  struck  me  as  a  ridiculous 
thing  to  be  climbing  a  steeple  in  patent-leather  shoes. 
I  smiled  to  think  of  the  odd  appearance  I  must  present 
from  below.  And  then  for  the  first  time  I  let  my  eyes 
turn  into  the  depths,  and  caught  a  glimpse  of  men  on 
housetops  watching  me.  I  saw  Merrill's  upturned 
face  down  where  the  ropes  ended.  And  I  saw  little 
horses  wriggling  along  on  the  street. 

There  were  three  places  where  the  steeple  narrowed 
into  slenderer  lengths,  and  at  each  one  was  a  sort  of 
cornice  to  be  scrambled  over  (and  loose  nails  to  be 
avoided),  and  then  more  careful  steering  with  legs  and 
toes  to  keep  on  one  particular  face  of  the  steeple  and 


HOW  THE   STEEPLE-CLIMBER   GOES   UP  A  FLAGPOLE. 


38     CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

not  swing  off  and  come  bumping  back,  a  disconcerting 
possibility.  "Hello!"  called  Lawlor  presently,  from 
above.  "You  're  doing  fine.  Come  right  along." 
And  before  I  knew  it  the  swing  had  stopped.  I  was 
at  the  top,  or  as  near  it  as  the  tackle  could  take  me. 
The  remaining  fifteen  feet  or  so  must  be  made  with 
stirrups.  And  there  was  Lawlor  standing  in  them  up 
by  the  ball.  There  was  not  a  stick  of  staging  to  sup- 
port him  (he  had  scorned  the  bother  of  hauling  up 
boards  for  so  simple  a  job),  and  he  was  working  with 
both  hands  free,  each  leg  standing  on  its  stirrup,  and 
several  hitches  of  life-line  holding  him  to  the  shaft  top 
by  his  waist. 

This  steeple-lassoing  exploit  was  one  of  the  things 
I  certainly  would  not  attempt — would  not  and  could 
not. 

Strangely  enough,  as  I  hung  here  at  rest  I  felt  the 
danger  more  than  coming  up.  It  seemed  most  per- 
ilous to  rest  my  weight  on  the  swing-board,  and  I 
found  myself  holding  my  legs  drawn  up,  with  muscles 
tense,  as  if  that  could  make  me  lighter.  Gradually  I 
realized  the  foolishness  of  this,  and  relaxed  into  greater 
comfort,  but  not  entirely.  Even  veteran  steeple-climb- 
ers waste  much  strength  in  needless  clutching;  cannot 
free  their  bodies  from  this  instinctive  fear. 

I  stayed  up  long  enough  to  take  three  photographs 
(some  minutes  passed  before  I  could  unlash  my  kodak), 
and  here  I  had  further  proof  of  subconscious  fright, 
for  I  made  such  blunders  with  shutter  and  focus  length 
as  would  put  the  youngest  amateur  to  shame.  Two 
pictures  out  of  the  three  were  failures,  and  the  third 
but  an  indifferent  success.  There  is  one  thing  to  be 
said  in  extenuation,  that  a  steeple  is  never  still,  but 
always  rocking  and  trembling.  When  Lawlor  changed 
his  stirrup  hitches  or  moved  from  side  to  side  the  old 


THE  STEEPLE-CLIMBER  39 

beams  would  groan  under  us,  and  the  whole  structure 
rock.  "She  'd  rock  more,"  said  Lawlor,  "if  she  was 
better  built.  A  good  steeple  always  rocks." 

There  was  n't  much  more  to  say  or  do  up  here,  and 
presently  we  exchanged  jerks  on  the  line  for  the  de- 
scent. And  Lawlor  cried  :  "Lower  away !  Hang  on, 
now !"  And  I  did  over  again  my  humble  part  of  leg- 
spreading  and  toe-steering,  with  the  result  that  pres- 
ently I  was  down  on  the  "bell-deck"  again,  receiving 
congratulations. 

"Here  's  your  knife,"  said  Merrill,  after  he  had  un- 
lashed  me. 

"What  did  you  take  it  for?"  I  asked. 

"Oh,  men  sometimes  get  a  mania  to  cut  the  ropes 
when  they  go  up  the  first  time.  And  that  is  n't  good 
for  their  health.  I  was  pretty  sure  you  'd  keep  your 
head,  but  I  was  n't  taking  any  chances." 

After  this  came  thanks  and  warm  hand-grips  all 
around,  and  then  I  left  these  daring  men  to  their 
duties,  and  went  down  the  lower  ladders.  I  am  sure 
I  never  appreciated  the  simple  privilege  of  standing 
on  a  sidewalk  as  I  did,  a  few  minutes  later,  when  I  left 
the  Church  of  the  Pilgrims  and  came  out  into  the  pleas- 
ant autumn  sunshine. 


THE  DEEP-SEA  DIVER 

i 

SOME    FIRST    IMPRESSIONS    OF    MEN    WHO    GO 
DOWN    UNDER    THE    SEA 

IN  old  South  Street,  far  down  on  the  New  York 
river-front,  is  a  gloomy  brick  building  with  black 
fire-escapes  zigzagging  across  its  face,  and  a  life-size 
diver  painted  over  its  door,  in  red  helmet  and  yellow 
goggle-eyes,  to  the  awe  and  admiration  of  the  young — 
to  the  awe  and  admiration  of  anybody  who  comes 
through  this  wicked-looking  street  by  night,  and  smells 
the  sea,  and  stares  along  miles  of  ships'  noses  that 
reach  right  over  the  car-tracks,  and  finally  stops  at 
the  black-lettered  announcement  that  wrecks  are  looked 
after  here  day  or  night,  and  mysteries  of  the  deep 
penetrated  by  gentlemen  of  the  diving  profession  in 
just  such  gigantic  suits  as  this  painted  one. 

None  of  this  had  I  noticed,  late  one  night  (being 
occupied  with  the  silent,  hungry  ships,  and  the  fire- 
cars  trailing  over  the  dim  bridge),  until  a  brisk  banjo- 
strumming  caught  my  ear,  and  I  paused  at  the  house 
of  wrecks,  whence  the  sounds  came.  Somebody  back 
in  these  moldering  shadows  was  playing  the  "Turkish 
Patrol,"  and  playing  it  remarkably  well. 

I  followed  the  light  down  a  narrow  passage,  and 
presently  came  upon  the  modern  wrecker,  in  the  person 
of  Benjamin  F.  Bean,  a  large  man  smoking  content- 
edly at  a  table  whereon  rested  a  telephone  and  phono- 

40 


THE  DEEP-SEA  DIVER  41 

graph.  The  phonograph  was  playing  the  "Turkish 
Patrol,"  and  a  single  incandescent  lamp,  swinging 
overhead,  illumined  the  scene.  There  were  coils  of 
rope  about,  and  photographs  of  vessels  in  distress,  and 
a  bunk  with  tumbled  sheets  at  one  side,  where  Mr. 
Bean  slept,  often  with  his  clothes  on,  while  awaiting 
the  ring  of  sundry  clanger-bells. 

Divers  fully  expect  to  be  objects  of  curiosity,  for 
never  do  they  work  except  before  wondering  audi- 
ences; so  this  one  found  my  visit  natural  enough — 
was  glad,  I  think,  to  talk  a  little  and  let  the  phono- 
graph rest.  It  must  be  rather  lonely,  after  all,  watch- 
ing for  wrecks  hour  after  hour,  night  after  night,  lis- 
tening always  for  footsteps  (the  officer's  tramp  or  the 
thug's  stealthy  tread),  listening  always  to  the  hoot 
of  passing  vessels,  listening  always  for  bad  news.  , 

He  explained  to  me  what  happens  when  the  bad 
news  comes,  say  a  collision  up  the  Hudson,  a  ferry- 
boat on  fire  down  the  bay,  a  line  of  barges  sunk  in 
the  Sound,  any  one  of  a  dozen  ordinary  disasters.  In 
olden  times  such  tidings  must  have  traveled  from 
mouth  to  mouth,  and  the  wreckers  of  those  days 
flashed  their  calls  and  warnings  with  beacon-fires. 
Now  electricity  does  all  this  much  better  with  the  click 
of  a  key ;  and  presently  somebody,  somewhere,  has  the 
office  at  the  end  of  a  wire  telling  what  the  trouble 
is,  and  forthwith  the  man  in  charge  puts  machinery  in 
motion  that  will  change  this  trouble  into  cash.  Br-r-r-r 
calls  the  telephone;  up  spring  messenger-boys  in  dis- 
tant all-night  stations,  and  in  half  an  hour  door-bells 
are  ringing  in  Harlem  or  Jersey  City,  and  the  men 
who  ought  to  know  things  know  them,  and  whistles 
are  sounding  on  big  pontoons  that  can  lift  two  hun- 
dred tons,  and  sleepy  men  are  tumbling  out  of  their 
bunks,  and  great  chains  are  clanking,  and  tug-boats 


42     CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

are  sputtering  forth  for  the  towing  of  sundry  hoisting- 
and  pumping-craft  that  go  splashing  along  to  the 
danger-spot  with  all  appliances  aboard,  pneumatic, 
hydraulic,  not  to  mention  savory  hot  coffee  served  to 
the  divers  and  the  crew. 

Most  divers  are  poor  story-tellers  (perhaps  because 
the  marvelous  grows  commonplace  to  them  from  over- 
indulgence in  it),  but  the  stories  are  there  in  their 
lives,  if  only  you  can  dig  them  out.  I  asked  Bean  if 
he  often  went  down  himself,  and  found  that  he  was 
still  in  active  service,  after  twenty-odd  years  of  it, 
which  certainly  had  agreed  with  him.  He  was  just 
back  from  a  sad  errand  in  Pennsylvania.  A  boy  had 
gone  swimming  in  a  slate-quarry,  and  been  drowned; 
they  had  dragged  for  him,  and  fired  cannon  over  the 
water,  but  nothing  had  availed,  and  so,  finally,  a  diver 
was  sent  for  from  the  city,  the  diver  being  Bean.  The 
quarry  was  a  great  chasm  four  or  five  hundred  feet 
deep,  with  eighty  feet  of  water  filling  various  galleries 
and  rock  shelves,  in  one  of  which  the  poor  lad  had  been 
caught  and  held.  The  question  was  in  which  one. 

"Well,"  said  Bean,  coming  abruptly  to  the  end,  "I 
went  down  and  got  him." 

That  was  his  way  of  telling  the  story:  he  "went 
down  and  got  him."  There  was  nothing  more  to  say; 
nothing  about  the  two  days'  perilous  search  through 
every  tunnel  and  recess  of  those  rocky  walls ;  nothing 
about  the  three  thousand  excited  people  who  crowded 
around  the  quarry's  mouth,  awaiting  the  issue,  nor  the 
scene  when  that  pitiful  burden  was  hauled  up  from 
the  depths. 

I  asked  Bean  if  he  had  ever  been  in  great  danger 
while  under  the  water. 

"Nothing  special,"  he  said,  and  then  added,  after 
thinking:  "Once  I  had  my  helmet  twisted  off." 


PORTKAIT   OF    A    DIVER,       DRAWN    FROM    LIFE, 


44    CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

"What,  below?" 

He  nodded. 

"How  can  a  diver  live  with  his  helmet  off?'' 

"He  can't,  usually.  'T  was  just  luck  they  got  me 
up  in  time.  They  say  my  face  was  black  as  a  coal." 
And  he  had  no  more  to  tell  of  this  adventure. 

With  few  exceptions,  divers  take  their  career  in 
exactly  this  phlegmatic,  matter-of-fact  way.  I  fancy 
a  man  of  vivid  imagination  would  break  under  the 
strain  of  such  a  life.  Yet  often  divers  will  go  into 
great  details  about  some  little  incident,  as  when  Bean 
described  the  hoisting  of  a  certain  boiler  sunk  outside 
of  Sandy  Hook.  It  had  been  on  a  tug-boat  of  such  a 
name,  it  was  so  many  feet  long  and  wide,  and  other 
things  about  the  tide  and  the  steam-derrick,  and  what 
the  captain  said,  the  point  being  that  this  boiler  had 
acted  as  an  enormous  trap  for  the  blackfish,  of  which 
they  had  found  some  hundreds  of  big  ones  splashing 
about  inside,  unable  to  escape. 

So  our  talk  ran  on,  and  all  the  time  I  was  thinking 
how  I  would  like  to  see  these  things  for  myself.  And 
it  came  to  pass,  as  the  subject  kept  its  hold  on  me, 
that  I  did  see  them.  Indeed,  I  spent  a  whole  summer 
month — and  found  zest  in  it  beyond  ordinary  summer 
pleasurings — in  observing  the  practical  operations  of 
diving  and  wrecking  as  they  go  on  in  the  waters  about 
New  York.  I  discovered  other  wrecking  companies, 
notably  one  on  West  Street,  and  from  the  head  man 
here  learned  many  things.  He  took  me  out  on  a 
pier  one  day,  where  one  of  his  crews  was  rescuing 
thirty  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  copper  buried  under 
the  North  River.  Every  few  minutes,  with  a  chunk- 
chunk  of  the  engine  and  a  rattle  of  chains,  the  dredge 
would  bring  up  a  fistful  of  mud  (an  iron  fist,  holding 
a  ton  or  so)  and  slap  it  down  on  the  deck,  where  a 


THE   DEEP-SEA    DIVER  45 

strong  hose-stream  would  wash  out  little  canvas  bags 
of  copper  ore,  each  worth  a  ten-dollar  bill  in  the 
market. 

"This  will  show  you,"  said  the  expert,  "what  a 
diver  has  to  contend  with  at  the  bottom  of  a  river. 
He  often  sinks  four  or  five  feet  in  the  mud,  just  as 
those  bags  sink,  and  sometimes  the  mud  suction  holds 
him  down  so  hard  that  three  men  pulling  on  the  life- 
line can  scarcely  budge  him.  And  when  the  mud  lets 
go  the  diver  comes  out  of  it  like  a  cork  from  a  bottle. 
You  can  feel  him  flop  over,  clean  tuckered  out  with 
kicking  and  working  his  arms.  They  let  him  lie 
there  a  minute  or  two  to  rest,  and  then  pull  him  up. 
Why,  vessels  will  sink  ten  or  twelve  feet  in  the  mud, 
so  that  the  diver  has  to  take  a  hose  down,  and  wash 
a  tunnel  out  below  the  keel,  to  get  a  lifting-chain 
under." 

"Wash  a  tunnel  out?"  I  inquired. 

"That  's  what  they  do.  You  know  how  you  can 
bore  a  hole  in  a  sand-bank,  don't  you,  with  a  stream 
of  water?  Well,  it  's  just  the  same  with  a  mud-bank 
down  below,  only  you  need  more  pressure.  Some- 
times we  use  a  stream  of  compressed  air.  The  diver 
steers  the  hose  just  as  a  fireman  steers  the  fire-hose, 
and  once  in  a  while  gets  knocked  over  by  the  force 
of  it,  just  as  a  fireman  does." 

Tunneling  mud-banks  under  water,  with  streams  of 
water  or  streams  of  compressed  air,  struck  me  as  de- 
cidedly a  novelty.  I  was  to  hear  of  stranger  things 
ere  long. 

My  guide  presently  pointed  out  a  splendidly  built 
young  man  who  was  shoveling  mud  off  the  deck,  not 
far  from  us. 

"There,"  said  he,  "is  a  case  that  illustrates  the  worst 
of  this  business.  That  fellow  is  made  to  be  a  diver; 


46     CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

he  's  intelligent,  he  's  not  afraid,  and  he  can  stand 
having  the  suit  on ;  he  's  been  down  two  or  three  times 
and  done  easy  jobs  of  patching.  If  he  'd  keep  straight 
for  a  year  or  two,  he  could  earn  his  ten  dollars  a  day 
with  the  best  of  them.  But  he  won't  keep  straight. 
The  poor  fellow  drinks.  We  can't  depend  on  him. 


"THE  DIVER  S  HELMET  SHOWED  LIKE  THE  BACK  OF  A  BIG  TURTLE. 

And  here  he  is,  shoveling  mud  for  a  dollar  and  a 
quarter  a  day,  and  no  steady  work  at  that." 

Ten  dollars  a  day  seemed  a  handsome  wage,  and  I 
asked  if  divers  generally  earn  so  much. 

"Good  ones  do,  and  a  diver's  day  is  only  four  hours' 
long,  or  less  when  they  go  to  great  depths.  And  they 
draw  a  salary  besides,  and  often  receive  handsome 
presents.  You  ought  to  see  our  chief  diver,  Bill  At- 
kinson; he  lives  in  a  brownstone  house."  He  paused 


THE   DEEP-SEA   DIVER  47 

a  moment,  and  then  added :  "But  I  guess  they  earn  all 
they  get." 

A  few  days  later  I  made  Mr.  Atkinson's  acquain- 
tance on  board  the  steam-pump  Dunderberg,  then  busy 
raising  a  coal-barge  sunk  off  Fourteenth  Street  in  the 
East  River. 

Atkinson  was  down  doing  carpenter-work  on  holes 
stove  in  her,  and  I  stood  on  deck  beside  the  man  "tend- 
ing" him,  and  watched  the  bubbles  boil  up  from  the 
diver's  breathing,  and  the  signals  on  a  rubber  hose 
and  a  rope.  It  was  less  air  or  more  air,  by  jerks  on 
the  hose.  It  was  rags  for  a  leak,  or  a  heavier  hammer, 
or  a  piece  of  batten  so-and-so  long,  with  nails  ready 
driven  at  the  corners — all  were  indicated  by  pulls  on 
the  life-line  or  the  startling  appearance  of  hands  or 
fingers  (Atkinson's),  that  would  now  and  then  reach 
above  water  and  move  impatiently.  The  wreck  was 
only  five  or  six  feet  under,  and  the  diver's  helmet 
showed  like  the  back  of  a  big  turtle  whenever  he  stood 
up  straight  on  the  sunken  deck. 

Suddenly  there  is  a  scurry  of  barefoot  youths  along 
the  pier  timbers.  The  diver  is  coming  up.  Now  he 
lifts  himself  slowly  under  the  crushing  weight,  one 
short  step  at  a  time  up  the  ladder.  No  man  at  all  is 
this,  but  a  dripping  three-eyed  monster  of  rubber  and 
brass,  infinitely  fascinating  to  wharf  loungers.  The 
"tender"  twists  off  the  face-glass,  and  Atkinson  says 
something  with  a  snap  in  it,  and  explains  what  he  is 
trying  to  do  at  the  forward  hatch.  Then  he  leans 
over  the  rail  on  his  stomach  and  rests.  Then  he  goes 
down  again. 

"He  's  the  best-natured  man  I  know,  Bill  is,"  re- 
marked Captain  Taylor,  commander  of  the  Dunder- 
berg; "but  all  men  get  irritable  under  water.  Why, 
I  Ve  had  men  who  would  n't  swear  for  the  world  up 


48     CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

in  the  air  tell  me  they  rip  out  cuss  words  something 
terrible  down  on  the  bottom.  Just  seems  like  they 
can't  help  it." 

I  noticed  that  the  tender  did  not  join  in  our  talk, 
but  stood  with  hands  on  his  lines  and  eyes  on  the 
water,  absorbed  in  his  responsibility;  he  looked  like 
an  angler  abput  to  land  a  big  fish.  Neither  did  the 
men  at  the  air-pump  talk.  This  feeding  breath  to  a 
diver  is  serious  business. 

"How  long  would  he  live,  do  you  think,"  I  asked, 
"if  the  pump  should  stop?" 

"Mebbe  a  minute,  mebbe  two,"  said  Captain  Tay- 
lor. "I  knew  a  Norwegian  who  was  down  in  fifty 
feet  of  water  when  the  hose  busted.  It  busted  on 
deck,  where  the  tender  heard  it,  and  he  started  to  lift, 
right  away.  It  could  n't  have  been  over  a  minute  be- 
fore they  had  him  up,  but  he  was  so  near  dead  the 
doctors  worked  three  hours  on  him  before  he  came 
around.  That  '11  give  you  an  idea  of  how  far  gone 
he  was." 

The  captain  told  of  other  desperate  chances  faced 
by  divers  in 'his  experience:  of  a  hose  and  life-line 
fouled  in  a  wreck;  of  an  escape-valve  frozen  shut,  in 
winter-time,  by  the  diver's  congealed  breath;  of  a  hel- 
met smashed  through  by  a  load  of  pig-iron  falling 
from  its  sling;  of  a  diver  dragged  off  a  wreck  by  a 
drifting  pontoon — such  a  record  of  thrilling  escapes 
and  tragedies  as  any  wrecking-master  could  run  over. 
One  realized  why  insurance  companies  refuse  to  take 
risks  on  divers'  lives,  and  why  the  diver's  pay  is 
large. 

Before  long  Atkinson  came  up  again,  and  an- 
nounced that  everything  was  ready,  holes  stopped  and 
suction  length  in  place.  Two  men  helped  undress 
him,  while  the  others  set  the  big  eight-inch  pipe  to 


THE   DEEP-SEA    DIVER  49 

pumping  out  the  wreck,  and  soon  it  was  spurting  a 
thick  stream  over  her  side  like  a  fire-tower. 

Presently  the  dinner-bell  rang  from  a  tiny  cabin 
below,  and  I  had  the  honor  of  breaking  bread  with 
the  crew  of  the  Dunderberg  and  two  of  the  company's 
stanchest  divers,  Atkinson  and  Timmans,  both  small, 
thin  men  with  wrinkled  faces,  both  the  heroes  of  many 
adventures.  Here  was  indeed  a  chance  to  find  out 
things ! 

One  of  my  first  questions  turned  upon  the  effect  of 
diving  on  a  man's  hearing.  Was  it  true,  as  I  had 
read,  that  divers  often  have  one  or  both  of  their  ear- 
drums ruptured  by  the  water-pressure? 

Both  men  thought  not ;  most  divers  of  their  acquain- 
tance had  good  hearing. 

"Diving  often  kills  a  man  straight  out,"  said  Tim- 
mans;  "but,  aside  from  that,  I  don't  think  it  injures 
his  health.  Ain't  that  right,  Bill?" 

Atkinson  nodded.  He  had  observed  that  divers  al- 
most never  take  cold  or  have  trouble  with  their  lungs, 
although  they  are  constantly  exposed  to  all  weathers, 
and  often  live  and  sleep  in  wet  clothes  for  days  and 
nights.  As  a  young  man,  he  himself  had  been  a  book- 
keeper, in  delicate  health.  People  thought  he  had  con- 
sumption. So  he  gave  up  bookkeeping  and,  by  acci- 
dent, became  a  diver.  He  had  never  had  a  sick  day 
since,  and  he  had  worn  the  suit  now  for  twenty-nine 
years. 

"About  a  man's  ears,"  said  he;  "there  's  no  doubt 
you  get  a  pressure  in  'em  when  you  go  down,  and  the 
pressure  gets  harder  and  harder  the  deeper  you  go, 
that  is,  until  your  ears  crack." 

"Crack?"  said  I. 

"Well,  that  's  what  we  call  it,  but  I  don't  suppose 
anything  really  cracks.  After  you  get  down,  say, 


50     CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

thirty  feet,  your  ears  hurt  a  good  deal,  especially  if  by 
chance  you  have  a  little  cold;  and  you  keep  opening 
your  mouth  and  swallering  to  make  the  crack  come, 
and  the  first  thing  you  know,  you  hear  a  sound  inside 
your  head  like  striking  a  match ;  that  's  the  crack,  and 
then  you  can  go  on  down  as  far  as  you  please,  and 
you  won't  feel  any  more  pain  in  your  ears  until  you  're 
coming  up  again ;  then  you  get  a  reverse  crack.  They 
say  it  's  the  air  working  in  and  out  of  your  head.  I 
don't  know  what  it  is,  but  I  know  some  men's  ears 
won't  crack,  and  those  men  can't  never  make  divers." 

"How  deep  can  a  diver  go  down?"  I  inquired. 

The  company  smiled  at  this,  and  turned  to  Atkin- 
son, who  smiled  back,  and  then  referred  modestly  to 
one  of  the  deepest  dives  on  record,  one  hundred  and 
fifty  feet,  made  by  himself  some  years  before  up  the 
Hudson.  He  had  a  pressure  of  six  atmospheres  on 
him  at  that  depth,  and  could  stay  down  only  twenty 
minutes.  "I  '11  tell  you  about  that  some  other  day," 
said  he.  "It  's  pretty  near  time  now  for  me  to  be 
sweeping  up  this  coal." 

Then,  answering  my  look  of  surprise  at  the  word 
"s'weeping,"  he  explained  how  they  lessen  the  weight 
of  a  sunken  barge  by  first  pumping  out  the  water  in 
her,  and  then  pumping  out  the  coal.  The  same  suc- 
tion-pipe does  both,  and  will  discharge  thirty-five  or 
forty  tons  of  coal  an  hour,  on  a  chute  which  holds  the 
coal  while  the  water  streams  through.  During  this 
operation  the  diver  is  down  in  the  barge,  moving  the 
suction-end  back  and  forth,  up  and  down — the  "sweep- 
ing" in  question — until  no  more  coal  is  left  for  its 
hungry  mouth. 

"We  pump  grain  out  of  wrecks  in  the  same  way," 
said  Atkinson,  "tons  and  tons  of  it !  and  they  dry  it 
in  ovens  and  sell  it.  A  man  must  look  sharp,  though, 


THE   DEEP-SEA   DIVER  51 

and  not  get  himself  caught.  We  had  a  diver — he  was 
new  at  the  business — who  got  his  knee  against  the 
suction-pipe  one  day  while  he  was  pumping  coal,  and 


DIVER  STANDING  ON  SUNKEN  COAL  BARGE. 


it  held  him  as  if  he  was  nailed  there.  He  was  so 
scared  he  tore  himself  loose;  but  he  had  to  rip  a  piece 
out  of  his  suit  to  do  it.  He  stayed  down,  though,  just 
the  same." 

"What! — with  a  hole  in  his  suit?" 


52     CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

"That  does  n't  matter,  as  long  as  it  's  only  in  the 
leg.  You  see,  the  air  in  the  helmet  presses  down 
hard  enough  to  keep  the  water  below  a  man's  neck. 
But  he  must  n't  bend  over  so  as  to  let  his  helmet  get 
lower  than  the  hole." 

"I  should  say  not!"  put  in  Timmans. 

"Why,  what  would  happen  if  he  did?" 

"He  'd  be  killed  quicker  than  you  can  wink.  The 
air  from  the  helmet  would  rush  out  at  the  hole,  and 
he  'd  be  crushed  by  the  weight  of  the  water." 

I  don't  know  whether  Mr.  Atkinson  realized  the 
full  truth  of  his  words,  but  I  found,  on  consulting  the 
authorities,  that  a  diver's  body  at  thirty-two  feet  is 
subjected  to  a  pressure  of  water  amounting  to  forty 
tons,  at  sixty-four  feet  to  eighty  tons,  at  ninety-six 
feet  to  one  hundred  and  twenty  tons,  etc.  And  it  is 
only  the  great  counter-pressure  in  the  helmet  of  air 
from  the  air-pump  that  enables  the  diver  to  endure 
this  otherwise  deadly  weight.  It  follows  that  the 
deeper  a  diver  goes,  the  harder  work  it  is  for  the  air- 
pump  men  to  drive  air  down  to  him;  and  at  great 
depths  as  many  as  four  men  are  sometimes  needed  at 
the  pump  to  conquer  the  water  resistance  and  keep 
open  the  escape- valve  (for  air  breathed  out)  at  the  hel- 
met-top. 

Here  ended  this  day's  talk,  for  the  coal  would  wait  no 
longer;  Atkinson  must  go  down  again  to  his  "sweep- 
ing." But  there  were  other  days  for  me  aboard  the 
Dunderberg — other  glimpses  into  these  brave,  simple 
lives.  Think  what  these  fellows  do !  Here  is  a  huge, 
helpless  vessel  at  the  bottom  of  a  bay,  with  the  tide 
tearing  her  to  pieces,  and  down  into  the  depths  comes 
a  queer  little  man,  as  big  as  one  of  her  anchor-points, 
and  stands  beside  her  in  the  mud,  and  feels  her  over, 
and  decides  how  he  will  save  her;  and  then  does  it — 


THE   DEEP-SEA   DIVER  53 

does  it  all  alone.  And  what  he  does  is  never  the  same 
as  anything  he  has  done  before;  for  each  wreck  is  a 
new  problem,  each  job  of  submarine  patching  has  its 
own  difficulties  and  dangers.  Oh,  bored  folk,  idle 
folk,  go  to  the  wreckers,  say  I,  if  you  want  a  new 
sensation;  watch  the  big  pontoons  put  forth  their 
strength,  watch  the  divers,  and  (if  you  can)  set  the 
crew  of  the  Dundcrbcrg  to  telling  stories. 


II 

A    VISIT    TO    THE    BURYING-GROUND    OF    WRECKS 

TITTLE  by  little,  one  picks  up  lore  of  the  divers — 
.L/  small  things,  yet  edifying.  In  summer  a  diver 
wears  underneath  his  suit,  to  keep  him  cool,  the  same 
flannel  shirt  and  thick  woolen  socks  that  he  wears  in 
winter  to  keep  him  warm.  But  he  wears  mittens  in 
winter  on  his  hands,  which  are  bare  in  summer.  On 
the  bitterest  day  in  January  he  finds  comparative 
warmth  in  deep  water,  as  he  finds  a  chill  there  in  torrid 
August.  Summer  and  winter  he  perspires  very  freely, 
and  a  little  work  brings  him  to  the  limit  of  his  strength, 
the  strain  being  chiefly  on  the  lungs.  The  deeper  he 
goes  the  more  exhausting  becomes  every  effort. 

A  diver  often  endures  real  suffering  (like  the  foot- 
tickling  torture)  because  he  cannot  scratch  his  nose 
or  face,  and  they  tell  of  one  man  who  worked  in 
great  distress  because,  when  he  got  down,  he  found  a 
June-bug  in  his  helmet,  and  had  to  bear  the  insect's 
lively  promenading  over  his  features,  powerless  to 
stop  it.  And  there  was  a  diver  who,  in  bravado,  used 
to  smoke  a  cigarette  inside  his  helmet. 

Divers,  as  a  class,  are  not  superstitious.  Seldom  do 
their  thoughts  down  below  stray  into  realms  of  fan- 
tasy, nor  have  they  time  to  dream,  but  only  to  ham- 
mer, and  saw,  and  ply  the  crowbar,  and  drive  iron 
spikes  twenty  inches  long  into  huge  timbers — in  short, 
to  attend  strictly  to  their  work. 

54 


THE  DEEP-SEA  DIVER  55 

It  is  amusing  to  note  the  scorn  of  practical  divers 
for  the  nice  electric-lighting  and  telephone  contriv- 
ances of  divers  who  never  dive,  but  sell  their  inven- 
tions to  the  Government  for  its  Newport  diving 
school,  which  same  inventions  remain,  for  the  most 
part,  in  their  spick-span  boxes.  It  seems  simple 
enough  to  have  submarine  lights;  yet  divers  who  dive 
prefer  to  grope  in  the  almost  darkness  of  our  ordinary 
waters.  It  seems  a  distinct  advantage  that  diver  and 
tender  be  able  to  talk  over  a  wire ;  yet  divers  who  dive 
keep  jealously  to  the  clumsy  system  of  jerks  on  the 
lines,  and  will  not  even  be  bothered  with  the  Morse 
alphabet.  The  fact  is,  a  diver  has  quite  as  much  as 
he  can  attend  to  with  the  burden  of  his  suit  (about  a 
hundred  and  seventy-five  pounds),  and  his  two  lines 
to  watch  and  keep  from  kinks  and  entanglements. 
Touch  one  of  these  lines,  and  you  touch  his  life.  Fas- 
ten a  new  line  to  him,  or  two  new  lines,  and  you  enor- 
mously increase  his  peril.  Imagine  yourself  stum- 
bling about  in  a  dark  forest,  with  a  man  strapped  on 
your  back,  and  several  ropes  dragging  behind  you 
among  trees  and  rocks,  each  separate  rope  being  to 
you  as  breath  and  blood!  That  is  precisely  the 
diver's  case.  So  he  goes;  so  he  works.  And  when 
they  offer  him  pretty  apparatus  to  increase  his  load, 
he  will  have  none  of  it.  Nor  will  he  tug  any  extra 
ropes.  "I  have  ways  enough  of  dying  as  it  is," 
says  he. 

Working  thus  in  gloom  or  darkness,  the  diver  de- 
velops his  senses  of  feeling  and  locality.  He  gains 
certain  qualities  of  blind  men,  and  finds  guidance  in 
unlooked-for  ways.  The  ascending  bubbles  from  his 
helmet,  for  instance,  shine  silver  white  and  may  be 
seen  for  a  couple  of  fathoms.  These  bubbles  have  a 
trick  of  lodging  in  a  vessel's  seams,  and  so  give  the 


56     CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

diver  a  rough  pattern  of  her.  Again,  in  searching  for 
leaks,  the  sense  of  hearing  helps  him,  for  he  can  dis- 
tinguish (after  long  habit)  the  sucking  sound  of  water 
rushing  through  the  holes. 

One  is  sorry  to  learn  that  divers  go  to  pieces  early; 
few  of  them  last  beyond  fifty.  As  they  grow  old  their 
keenness  wanes;  they  lose  their  bearings  easily  down 
below,  and  show  bad  judgment.  And  fear  of  the 
business  grows  upon  them.  Often  they  seek  false 
courage  in  strong  drink,  which  hurries  on  the  end. 
Too  many  of  them,  after  searching  all  their  lives  for 
wrecks,  wind  up  as  wrecks  themselves.  But  it  is  good 
to  know  that  there  are  exceptions — divers  like  Bill 
Atkinson,  sturdy  and  true  at  fifty,  and  good  in  the 
suit  for  years  to  come,  unless  their  wives  persuade 
them  to  retire.  The  diver's  wife,  I  am  told — poor 
woman ! — starts  with  terror  every  time  she  hears  a 
door-bell  ring. 

I  must  speak  now  of  the  burying-ground  for  wrecks, 
one  of  the  strangest,  saddest,  most  interesting  bury- 
ing-grounds  I  can  think  of.  It  was  a  disaster  to  the 
tug-boat  America  that  brought  me  there,  this  ill-fated 
craft  having  been  cut  half  through  in  the  North  River 
and  sunk  by  a  great  liner  she  was  helping  into  dock. 
The  America  went  down  forthwith  in  sixty  feet  of 
water — sank  so  suddenly  that  all  aboard  her  had  to 
cast  themselves  into  the  water  and  fight  for  it.  The 
fireman  and  the  cook,  not  knowing  how  to  swim,  fought 
in  vain,  and  ended  their  lives  there.  It  is  astonishing 
how  many  men  who  follow  the  sea  as  a  business  can- 
not swim.  Well,  in  due  course  the  wreckers  came 
up  to  lift  the  tug-boat,  and  Atkinson  (who  cannot 
swim  either)  directed  the  job.  They  swung  chains 
under  her,  fore  and  aft,  they  " jacked  her  up"  nearly 
to  the  surface,  and  then,  while  four  pontoons  held  her, 


THE   DEEP-SEA   DIVER 


57 


THE  MEN  AT  WORK  WITH  THE  AIR-PUMP. 


the  Pinafore,  the  Catamaran,  and  two  others  (only  the 
working  crews  know  the  names  of  these  pontoons), 
they  all  splashed  slowly  up  the  river  under  tow  of  the 
wrecking-tug  Fly,  and  finally  came  to  the  burying- 
ground  of  wrecks.  Here  they  " jacked  her  up"  some 
more  (it  was  "We  've  got  her!"  "Slack  away  now!" 
and  "R'heh-eh-eh !"  as  the  men  strained  at  the  blocks), 
and  then  they  grounded  her  on  the  mud,  where  wrecks 
have  been  grounded  for  years,  and  left  her,  with  all 
the  others,  to  rust  and  ruin  and  rot. 

But  before  they  grounded  her  there  was  a  long  time 


58     CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

to  wait  for  high  tide — time  for  a  good  meal  on  the 
Catamaran,  and  a  talk  about  hazards  of  the  sea  as 
divers  know  them.  It  was  then  that  Atkinson  told 
me  the  promised  story  of  his  deepest  dive.  I  wish  all 
men  who  do  big  things  would  speak  of  them  as  simply 
as  he  did. 

"It  's  like  this/'  said  he:  "in  diving,  the  same  as 
in  other  things,  every  man  has  his  limit;  but  he  can't 
tell  what  it  is  until  the  trial  comes.  At  this  time  I  'm 
talking  about  (some  ten  years  ago)  I  thought  a  hun- 
dred feet  about  as  deep  as  I  wanted  to  go.  If  there 
are  two  hundred  divers  in  the  country,  you  can  bet  on 
it  not  ten  of  them  can  go  down  over  a  hundred  feet. 
Well,  along  comes  this  job  in  the  middle  of  winter 
— a  head-on  collision  up  the  Hudson  off  Fort  Mont- 
gomery, and  a  fine  tug-boat  gone  to  the  bottom.  We 
came  up  with  pontoons  to  raise  her,  and  Captain  Tim- 
mans  (he  's  the  father  of  Timmans  the  diver)  ordered 
Hansen  down  to  fix  a  chain  under  her  shaft — there  's 
the  man  now." 

A  big  Scandinavian  in  the  listening  circle  looked 
pleased  at  this  mention.  He  was  Hansen. 

"We  knew  by  the  sounding  that  she  lay  in  a 
hundred  and  fifty  feet  of  water  on  a  shelf  of  bot- 
tom over  a  deeper  place,  and  Hansen  was  a  little 
anxious.  He  got  me  to  tend  him,  and  I  remem- 
ber he  asked  me,  when  I  was  putting  the  suit  on 
him,  if  I  thought  he  could  do  it.  Remember  that, 
Hansen?" 

Hansen  nodded. 

"I  told  him  I  thought  I  could  do  the  job  myself,  so 
why  should  n't  he?  but  that  was  partly  to  encourage 
him. 

"Anyhow,  Hansen  went  down,  and  I  got  a  signal 
'All  right'  from  him  when  he  struck  the  bottom.  Then 


THE   DEEP-SEA   DIVER  59 

the  line  kept  very  still,  and  pretty  soon  I  jerked  it 
again.  No  answer.  So  I  knew  something  was 
wrong,  and  began  to  haul  him  up  quick,  telling  the 
boys  to  turn  faster.  He  was  unconscious  when  we 
got  him  on  deck,  but  he  soon  came  round,  and  said  he 
felt  like  he  'd  been  dreaming.  He  '11  tell  you  if  that 
ain't  right." 

"It  's  right,"  said  Hansen. 

"We  could  n't  work  any  more  that  day,  on  account 
of  the  tide,  but  Captain  Timmans  said  the  thing  had  to 
be  done  the  next  morning,  and  wanted  Hansen  to  try 
it  again ;  but  Hansen  would  n't." 

"Was  n't  no  use  of  trying  again,"  put  in  Hansen. 

"That  's  it;  he  'd  passed  his  limit.  But  it  seems 
I  had  a  longer  one.  Anyhow,  when  the  captain  called 
on  me,  I  got  into  the  suit  and  went  down,  and  I  stayed 
down  until  that  chain  was  under  the  shaft.  It  took 
me  twenty  minutes,  and  I  don't  believe  I  could  have 
stood  it  much  longer.  The  pressure  was  terrible,  and 
those  twenty  minutes  took  more  out  of  me  than  four 
hours  would,  say,  at  fifty  feet.  But  we  got  the  tug- 
boat up,  and  she  's  running  yet." 

After  this  Hansen  told  a  story  showing  what  power 
the  suction-pipes  exert  in  pumping  out  a  vessel.  He 
was  working  on  a  wreck  off  City  Island,  at  the  en- 
trance to  the  Sound.  He  had  signaled  for  rags  to 
stuff  up  a  long  crack,  and  the  tender  had  tied  a  bundle 
of  them  to  the  life-line,  and  lowered  it  to  him  by  slack- 
ing out  the  line.  All  this  time  the  pump  was  work- 
ing at  full  pressure,  throwing  out  streams  from  the 
wreck  through  four  big  pipes.  Suddenly  the  life-line 
came  near  the  crack,  and  was  instantly  drawn  into  it 
and  jammed  fast,  so  that  Hansen  would  have  been 
held  prisoner  by  the  very  rope  intended  to  save  him, 
had  it  not  been  for  the  slack  paid  out,  which  was  for- 


60     CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 


STAYED  DOWN  UNTIL  THAT  CHAIN  WAS 
UNDER  THE  SHAFT." 


tunately  long  enough 
to  bring  him  up. 
Had  it  been  his  hand 
or  foot  that  was 
seized  in  that  suck- 
ing clutch,  the  inci- 
dent would  have  had 
a  sadder  ending. 

Then  came  other 
stories,  until  the  day 
was  fading  and  the 
tide  was  right,  and 
Atkinson  was  ready 
for  the  grounding  of 
this  soaked  and  bat- 
tered tug-boat.  Pres- 
ently he  calls  "Look 
out  for  that  rope. 
Get  yer  jacks  ready. 
Now  slack  away!" 
And  forthwith  pul- 
leys are  creaking 
and  great  chains  are 
grinding  down  link 
by  link  as  the  men 
pump  at  the  little 
"jacks"  and  the  for- 
ty-foot timbers  that 
stretch  across  pon- 
toons and  hold  the 
wreck-chains  groan 
on  their  blocks,  and 
at  last  the  America 
comes  to  rest  safely, 


THE  0  DEEP-SEA  DIVER  61 

ingloriously  on  the  mud.  Poor  America!  so  proud  and 
saucily  tooting  only  the  other  day,  now  a  bedraggled 
wreck  on  these  Weehawken  flats,  destined  to  what 
fate  who  knows  ?  To  be  lifted  from  the  mud,  patched 
up,  rebuilt,  quarreled  over  by  owners  and  insurance 
people,  or  perhaps  simply  left  here,  with  the  others, 
for  wharf-rats  to  swarm  in  and  boys  to  go  crab- 
bing on ! 

The  burying-ground  of  wrecks !  What  a  sight 
from  the  rugged  height  back  of  the  water !  Here  are 
blackened,  shapeless  hulks  from  the  great  river  fire  of 
1900,  when  red-hot  liners  drifted  blazing  to  these  very 
flats.  Here  is  the  ferry-boat  River  Bell,  decked  with 
flags  in  her  day,  and  danced  on  by  gay  excursionists, 
now  thick  with  mud  and  slime,  her  deck-beams  spongy 
under  foot,  her  wheel-frames  twisted  like  a  broken 
spider's- web.  Here  are  the  half-sunken  halves  of 
some  ice-barge,  cut  clean  in  two  by  a  liner.  Here, 
heaving  with  the  tide,  is  an  aged  car-float  with  a 
watchman's  shanty  on  it,  heaped  with  its  rusted  boil- 
ers, its  anchors,  cranes,  gear-wheels,  cables,  pumps,  a 
tangle  of  iron  things  that  were  once  important.  Here 
is  a  scuttled  tug-boat  that  has  been  in  a  law-suit  (and 
the  mud)  for  years.  Here  is  a  coal-barge,  wedged 
open  and  sunk  by  her  owner  to  steal  the  insurance 
money.  Wrecks  spread  all  about  us,  and  above  them 
rise  the  masts  and  cranes  of  pontoons  and  pumping- 
craft,  that  seem,  in  the  shadows  and  desolation,  like 
things  of  evil  omen  guarding  their  prey. 

Night  is  coming  on.  Lights  show  in  the  great  city 
across  the  river.  Ferry-boats  pass.  Lines  of  barges 
pass.  Whistles  sound.  The  waves  splash,  splash 
against  the  wrecks,  touching  them  gently,  one  would 
say.  But  nobody  else  cares.  Nobody  comes  near. 


62     CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

• 

Nobody  looks.  The  divers  go  home.  The  wrecking- 
crews  eat  and  turn  in  to  sleep.  A  rat  squeals  some- 
where. These  helpless,  crippled  hulks  are  alone  in  the 
night,  and  they  grind,  grind  against  decaying  stumps. 
They  are  wrecks,  they  are  dead,  they  are  buried — and 
yet  they  can  move  a  little  in  the  mud ! 


Ill 


AN    AFTERNOON    OF    STORY-TELLING    ON    THE 

STEAM-PUMP  "DUNDERBERG" 

WHEN  there  is  difficult  diving  to  be  done  in  the 
East  River,  or  in  any  river  where  the  tide  runs 
strong,  you  will  see  the  wrecking-boats  swing  idly  at 
anchor  for  hours  waiting  for  slack  water,  the  only 
time  when  divers  dare  go  down.  And  often  there  is 
half  a  day's  waiting  for  half  an  hour's  work,  and  often 
a  week  goes  by  on  a  two  hours'  job,  say,  in  full  mid- 
stream, where  not  even  the  most  venturesome  beginner 
will  stay  down  more  than  twenty  minutes  at  the  turn, 
lest  he  be  swept  away,  ponderous  suit  and  all,  by  the 
rush  of  the  river.  It  's  start  your  patch  and  leave  it 
to  be  ripped  open  by  the  beating  sea;  it  's  get  your 
chain  fast  nine  weary  times,  and  have  it  nine  times 
torn  away  over  night  by  some  foolish,  bumping  tug- 
boat; in  fact,  it  's  worry  and  aggravation  until  the 
thing  is  over. 

Also,  this  is  the  time  of  times,  if  you  can  get  aboard, 
to  make  acquaintance  with  the  wreckers,  to  pick  up  lore 
of  the  diving-suit  and  tales  of  the  clivers. 

It  was  bad  weather  when  we,  on  the  sturdy  old 
Dunderberg,  wrere  busy  at  a  wreck  off  the  Brooklyn 
shore,  not  far  from  Grand  Street  ferry  (I  had  as 
much  to  do  with  lifting  this  wreck  as  the  pewter 
spoons  stuck  around  the  little  cabin).  It  was  n't 
much  of  a  wreck  anyhow — only  a  grain-boat — but  it 
had  my  gratitude  for  stubbornly  refusing  to  come  up. 

63 


64    CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

And  so  we  had  hours  to  spend  down  in  the  cabin  afore- 
said, which  could  barely  hold  cook-stove  and  dining- 
table,  but  managed  to  be  parlor  and  bedroom  besides; 
also  laundry  on  occasions.  The  D under berg,  I  should 
explain,  was  originally  a  mud-scow,  but  for  good  con- 
duct and  an  injury  to  her  nose  had  been  changed  into 
a  steam-pump.  She  could  suck  her  forty  tons  of  coal 
an  hour  out  of  a  wreck  with  the  best  of  them.  And 
she  traveled  with  four  pontoons,  no  one  of  which  could 
touch  her  in  table  fare,  especially  coffee. 

Late  one  afternoon,  when  the  rain  was  drizzling 
and  the  swinging  brass  lamps  lit,  we  sat  about  on 
wooden  stools  (and  some  were  curled  up  in  bunks 
along  the  walls)  and  listened  to  the  talk  of  Atkinson 
and  Timmans  and  Hansen,  who  had  seen  and  done 
strange  things  in  their  time. 

They  were  discussing  the  escape-valve  in  a  diver's 
helmet,  and  arguing  whether  it  pays  to  stiffen  the 
spring  for  very  deep  diving.  Atkinson,  who  had 
worked  eight  fathoms  deeper  than  either  of  them,  said 
he  left  his  spring  alone;  he  used  the  same  suit  and  the 
same  valve  action  for  any  depth. 

"But  I  look  out  for  sand-banks,"  said  he,  "ever 
since  that  fellow — you  know  who  I  mean — had  one 
cave  in  on  him  in  the  North  River.  He  was  tunneling 
under  a  vessel  with  a  wall  of  sand  beside  him  higher 
than  his  head,  and  the  first  thing  he  knew  he  was  flat 
on  his  back,  with  sand  jammed  in  his  valve  so  it 
could  n't  open.  It  was  n't  a  minute  before  he  was 
shot  up  to  the  surface  like  a  balloon.  The  reason  of 
that,"  he  explained  for  my  benefit,  "is  because  a  diving- 
suit  with  its  valve  shut  gets  lighter  and  lighter  as  they 
drive  down  air  from  the  air-pump,  until  all  of  a  sud- 
den it  comes  up,  man  and  all,  just  as  a  plank  would  if 
you  held  it  on  the  bottom  and  then  let  it  go." 


THE  DEEP-SEA  DIVER 


THE    MAN    WHO    ATTENDS    TO   THE    DIVER  S    SIGNALS. 


"Talking  about  planks  coming  up,"  said  Timmans, 
who  was  seated  under  the  picture  of  a  prize-fighter, 
"I  was  down  on  the  North  German  Lloyd  steamer 

5 


66    CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

Main,  the  one  that  was  burned  and  sunk,  fixing  a 
suction-pipe  to  pump  grain  out  of  her,  when  a  big 
wooden  hatch  got  loose  and  came  up  under  me.  I 
was  working  between  decks,  and  the  hatch  swung  me 
right  up  against  the  overhead  beams  and  held  me  there, 
squeezing  the  life-line  and  hose  so  tight  I  could  n't 
signal.  It  's  lucky  the  hose  was  wire  wound,  or  that 
would  have  been  the  last  of  me.  But  I  got  my  air  all 
right,  and  after  a  while  I  worked  free." 

"Wire  wound  and  all,"  observed  Atkinson,  "I  've 
had  my  hose  squeezed  so  the  air  was  shut  off.  I  was 
on  a  wreck  off  one  of  the  Hoboken  docks  once,  when 
an  eight-inch  suction-pipe  caught  the  hose  coming 
down  through  a  hatch,  and  the  next  second  I  felt  my 
air  stop,  though  I  could  hear  the  pump  beating.  I 
jerked  'slack  away'  on  the  life-line,  and  that  loosed 
the  hose  and  saved  me,  but  I  got  a  blast  of  compressed 
air  as  the  jam  eased  that  jumped  me  up  a  yard." 

"Suppose  your  life-line  had  been  jammed,  too,"  I 
asked,  "so  that  you  could  n't  jerk  'slack  away'  ?" 

Atkinson  paused  to  think.  "There  's  a  difference 
of  opinion  about  how  long  a  man  can  live  on  the  air 
that  's  in  his  helmet.  Some  say  three  or  four  min- 
utes. I  don't  believe  it.  I  think  two  minutes  would 
do  the  business." 

"There  was  George  Seaman — "  began  Timmans. 

"Yes,"  said  Atkinson,  taking  up  the  story,  as  was 
a  senior's  right,  "there  was  George  Seaman,  who  put 
trust  in  the  argument  of  Tom  Scott  and  Low  and  some 
of  those  old-timers,  that  a  man  can  cut  his  hose  and 
press  his  thumb  quick  against  the  hole  and  live  long 
enough  on  what  air  's  in  the  helmet  to  reach  the  top. 
Years  ago  they  used  to  give  that  talk  to  us  youngsters, 
but  I  notice  none  of  'em  ever  tried  it.  Well,  Seaman, 
he  did  try  it;  he  was  down  on  a  wreck  somewhere 


THE  DEEP-SEA  DIVER  67 

along-  Sixtieth  Street,  and  his  hose  got  caught  in  the 
timbers.  The  life-line  was  all  right,  and  he  was  get- 
ting air  enough,  only  when  they  tried  to  haul  him  up 
he  stuck  on  account  of  the  hose.  They  tried  three 
times  to  lift  him,  and  each  time  he  'd  come  up  a  few 
feet  and  stick,  and  then  they  'd  have  to  let  him  fall 
back.  You  can  see  that  's  awful  discouraging  for  a 
man,  especially  when  he  's  tired  and  cold.  If  Seaman 
had  kept  his  nerve  and  waited  they  'd  prob'bly  have 
sent  another  diver  down  to  get  him  untangled,  but  he 
did  n't  keep  his  nerve.  All  he  saw  was  that  the  hose 
was  caught  and  he  could  n't  free  it,  and  they  could  n't 
get  him  up.  It  's  a  lot  easier  to  get  rattled  at  the 
bottom  of  a  river  than  up  in  the  air,  and  Seaman 
called  to  mind  what  he  'd  heard  about  stopping  the 
hole  with  your  thumb,  and  he  got  out  his  knife.  All 
divers  carry  a  knife  fast  to  the  suit.  See,  like  this." 
He  drew  a  two-edged  knife,  a  wicked-looking  weapon, 
out  of  its  leathern  sheath,  and  moved  his  thumb  along 
the  edge. 

"Then  Seaman  he  felt  for  the  hose,  and  made  ready 
to  cut.  His  idea  was,  you  see,  to  slash  the  hose  at  one 
stroke,  then  jerk  on  the  life-line  to  be  hauled  up  quick, 
and  keep  the  hole  shut  with  his  thumb  while  he  came 
up.  I  can  picture  him  now  with  his  knife  on  the  hose, 
sort  of  praying  a  minute,  like  a  man  might  with  a  knife 
at  his  throat.  That  's  what  it  amounted  to.  Well, 
he  wrote  the  story  of  what  he  did  right  there  on  the 
hose,  and  wrote  it  plain.  They  've  got  the  piece  at 
the  office,  and  they  '11  show  it  to  you  if  you  ask  'em. 
Seaman  made  his  cut  with  about  two  men's  strength; 
I  '11  bet  not  one  of  you  boys  could  do  near  as  well  as 
he  did  at  cutting  a  hose  through  with  one  stroke.  His 
slash  came  clear  through  all  but  a  shaving  of  rubber, 
and  he  tried  to  cut  that  with  a  second  stroke;  but  the 


68     CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

knife  struck  a  new  place  about  an  inch  away,  and  he 
slashed  her  half  through  there.  Then  he  tried  nine 
times  more,  and  made  nine  separate  cuts  at  the  hose; 
and  there  they  are  to-day,  about  half  an  inch  apart, 
each  one  a  little  shallower  than  the  one  before,  and 
the  last  two  or  three  only  scratches  on  the  outside. 
That  was  just  as  he  died,  and  you  can  figure  out  how 
long  it  prob'bly  took  him  to  make  those  eleven  knife 
strokes.  I  suppose  there  ought  to  be  thirteen,  but 
eleven  's  what  there  is.  You  '11  count  'em." 

Not  only  did  I  count  them,  these  eleven  tragic  cuts, 
but  I  have  the  piece  of  hose  to  this  day.  The  office 
people  gave  it  to  me,  and  never  do  I  look  but  with 
a  shiver  at  this  dumb  record  in  diminuendo  of  agony 
and  sacrifice. 

"I  suppose  that  settled  the  question  of  stopping  a 
hose  with  your  thumb?"  I  remarked. 

"That  's  what  it  did!"  said  Atkinson. 

After  this  there  were  more  stories.  I  can't  begin 
to  say  how  many  more.  Every  time  a  diver  goes 
down,  one  would  say,  something  new  happens  to  him, 
something  worth  telling  about.  Hansen  related  an 
experience  of  his  with  a  conger  eel.  Atkinson  told 
how  a  Dock  Department  diver  named  Fairchild  was 
blown  to  death  under  forty  feet  of  water  when  twenty- 
eight  pounds  of  dynamite  he  was  putting  in  for  blast- 
ing went  off  too  soon.  Timmans  told  how  he  fainted 
away  once,  one  hundred  and  five  feet  down,  and  an- 
other time  let  the  water  into  his  suit  by  pulling  out 
a  helmet  lug  on  a  foolish  wager.  And  that  reminded 
Atkinson  of  the  time  his  gasket  (the  rubber  joint  under 
the  collar)  was  cut  through  by  the  slam  of  an  iron 
ladder,  and  the  air  went  out  "Hooo,"  and  a  quick  jerk 
on  the  life-line  was  all  that  saved  him.  Last  of  all  they 
told  the  story  of  old  Captain  Conkling  and  the  Hoi- 


THE  DEEP-SEA  DIVER  69 

yoke  Dam,  a  story  known  to  every  diver.  It  seems 
there  was  a  leak  in  this  dam,  and  the  water  was  rush- 
ing through  with  so  strong  a  suction  that  it  seemed 
certain  death  for  a  diver  to  go  near  enough  to  stop  the 
leak.  Yet  it  was  extremely  important  that  the  leak 
be  stopped — in  fact,  the  saving  of  the  dam  depended 
on  it.  So  Captain  Conkling,  who  was  in  charge  of 
the  job,  induced  one  of  his  divers  to  go  down,  and 
reluctantly  the  man  put  on  his  suit,  but  insisted  on 
having  an  extra  rope,  and  a  very  strong  one,  tied 
around  his  waist. 

"What  's  that  for?"  asked  Conkling. 

"That  's  to  help  get  my  body  out,  if  the  life-line 
breaks,"  said  the  diver. 

"Go  on  and  do  your  work,"  replied  Conkling,  who 
had  little  use  for  sentiment. 

It  happened  exactly  as  the  diver  feared.  He  was 
drawn  into  the  suction  of  the  hole,  and  when  they 
tried  to  pull  him  up  both  hose  and  life-line  parted, 
and  the  man  was  drowned,  but  they  managed  to 
rescue  his  body  with  the  heavy  line,  just  as  he  had 
planned. 

Then  Conkling  called  for  another  diver,  but  not  a 
man  responded.  They  said  they  were  n't  that  kind 
of  fools. 

"All  right,"  said  the  captain,  in  his  businesslike 
way;  "then  I  '11  go  down  myself  and  stop  that  hole." 
And  he  called  the  men  to  dress  him. 

At  this  time  Captain  Conkling  was  seventy-five  years 
old,  and  had  retired  long  since  from  active  diving. 
But  he  was  as  strong  as  a  horse  still,  and  no  man  had 
ever  questioned  his  courage. 

In  vain  they  tried  to  dissuade  him.  "I  '11  stop  that 
hole,"  said  he,  "and  I  don't  want  any  extra  rope, 
either." 


70    CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

He  kept  his  word.  He  went  down,  and  he  stopped 
the  hole,  but  it  was  with  his  dead  body,  and  to-day 
somewhere  in  the  Holyoke  Dam  lie  the  bones  of  brave 
old  Captain  Conkling,  incased  in  full  diving-dress, 
helmet  and  hose  and  life-line,  buried  in  that  mass  of 
masonry.  No  man  ever  dared  go  down  after  his  body. 


IV 


WHEREIN    WE    MEET    SHARKS,    ALLIGATORS,    AND 
A    VERY    TOUGH    PROBLEM    IN    WRECKING 

TIMMANS,  whom  I  used  to  call  the  student  diver, 
because  of  his  keen  observation  and  capacity  for 
wonder,  leaned  against  the  step-ladder  that  reached 
down  from  hatch  to  cabin  on  the  Dunderberg,  and  re- 
marked, while  the  others  listened :  "I  did  a  queer  job 
of  diving  once  down  into  the  hold  of  a  steamship,  a 
National  liner,  that  lay  in  her  dock,  blazing  with  elec- 
tric lights,  and  dry  as  a  bone.  Just  the  same,  I  needed 
my  suit  when  I  got  down  into  her  —  in  fact,  I 
would  n't  have  lasted  there  very  long  without  air  from 
the  pump. 

"Some  queer  cargo?"  suggested  Atkinson. 

"That  's  it.  She  was  loaded  with  caustic  soda,  or 
whatever  they  make  bleaching-powder  of — barrels  and 
barrels  of  it,  with  the  heads  broke  in  after  a  storm, 
and  it  was  n't  good  stuff  to  breathe,  I  can  tell  you. 
First  they  set  men  shoveling  it  out,  with  sponges  in 
their  mouths,  against  the  dust  and  gases,  but  one  man 
coughed  so  hard  he  tore  something  in  his  lungs  or  head 
and  died.  Then  they  sent  for  a  diver — that  was  me — 
and  I  worked  hours  down  there  hoisting  and  shovel- 
ing, like  I  was  at  the  bottom  of  the  bay,  only  there 
was  no  water  to  carry  the  weight.  Say,  but  was  n't 
that  suit  heavy,  and  when  I  looked  out  through  my 
helmet-glasses  it  seemed  as  if  I  was  digging  through 

71 


72     CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

a  snow-field,  with  such  a  terrible  dazzle  it  made  my 
eyes  ache  to  look  at  it." 

"I  suppose  you  don't  usually  see  much  under 
water?"  said  I. 

"Depends  on  what  water  it  is,"  answered  Timmans. 

"All  rivers  around  New  York  are  black  as  ink 
twenty  feet  down,"  remarked  Atkinson. 

"I  know  they  are,"  said  Timmans,  "but  I  've  seen 
different  rivers.  When  I  was  diving  off  the  Kenne- 
bec's  mouth,  five  miles  southeast  of  the  Seguin  light 
(we  were  getting  up  the  wreck  of  the  Mary  Lee), 
then,  gentlemen,  I  looked  througn  as  beautiful  clear 
water  as  you  could  find  in  a  drug-store  filter.  Why, 
it  reminded  me  of  the  West  Indies.  I  could  see  plainly 
for,  well,  certainly  seventy-five  feet  over  swaying  kelp- 
weed,  eight  feet  high,  with  blood-red  leaves  as  big 
as  a  barrel,  all  dotted  over  with  black  spots.  There 
were  acres  and  acres  of  it,  swarming  with  rock-crabs 
and  lobsters  and  all  kinds  of  fish." 

"Any  sharks?"  said  I. 

Hansen  and  Atkinson  smiled,  for  this  is  a  question 
always  put  to  divers,  who  usually  have  to  admit  that 
they  never  even  saw  a  shark.  Not  so  Timmans. 

"I  had  an  experience  with  a  shark,"  he  answered 
gravely,  "but  it  was  n't  up  in  Maine.  It  was  while 
we  were  trying  to  save  a  three-thousand-ton  steamer 
of  the  Hamburg-American  Packet  Company,  wrecked 
on  a  bar  in  the  Magdalena  River,  United  States  of 
Colombia.  I  'd  been  working  for  days  patching  her 
keel,  hung  on  a  swinging  shelf  we  'd  lowered  along  her 
side,  and  every  time  I  went  down  I  saw  swarms  of 
red  snappers  and  butterfish  under  my  shelf,  darting 
after  the  refuse  I  'd  scrape  off  her  plates;  and  there 
were  big  jewfish,  too,  and  I  used  to  harpoon  'em  for 
the  men  to  eat.  In -fact,  I  about  kept  our  crew  sup- 


THE  DEEP-SEA  DIVER  73 

plied  with  fresh  fish  that  way.  Well,  on  one  particu- 
lar day  I  noticed  a  sudden  shadow  against  the  light, 
and  there  was  a  shark  sure  enough;  not  such  an 
enormous  one,  but  twelve  feet  long  anyhow — big 
enough  to  make  me  uneasy.  He  swam  slowly  around 
me,  and  then  kept  perfectly  still,  looking  straight  at 
me  with  his  little  wicked  eyes.  I  did  n't  know  what 
minute  he  might  make  a  rush,  so  I  caught  up  a  ham- 
mer I  was  working  with — it  was  my  only  weapon — 
and  struck  it  against  the  steamer's  iron  side  as  hard 
as  I  could.  You  know  a  blow  like  that  sounds  louder 
under  water  than  it  does  in  the  air,  and  it  frightened 
the  shark  so  he  went  off  like  a  flash." 

"Perhaps  he  was  n't  hungry,"  laughed  one  of  the 
crew. 

"Not  hungry?  I  '11  tell  you  how  hungry  those 
sharks  were.  They  'd  swallow  big  chunks  of  pork, 
sir,  nailed  and  wired  to  barrel  heads,  as  fast  as  we 
could  chuck  'em  overboard ;  swallow  nails,  wire,  barrel 
heads,  and  all,  and  then  we  'd  haul  'em  in  by  ropes, 
that  did  for  fish-lines,  only  it  took  twenty  or  thirty 
men  to  do  the  hauling.  And  there  were  plenty  of 
sharks  'round,  only  they  never  seemed  to  tackle  a  man 
in  the  suit." 

"Some  say  it  's  the  fire-light  of  the  valve  bubbles 
that  scares  sharks  off,"  commented  Atkinson.  "I 
don't  know  what  it  is,  but  I  know  the  bubbles  shine 
something  wonderful  as  you  watch  'em  boiling  up 
out  of  your  helmet." 

"Phosphorescence,"  I  suggested,  and  then  went  back 
into  the  talk  for  some  broken  threads. 

"How  about  that  steamer  you  were  telling  about," 
I  asked ;  "the  one  that  was  wrecked  on  the  bar  ?  Did 
you  save  her?" 

"I  should  say  we  did,"  replied  Timmans,   "and  I 


74     CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

guess  the  company  wished  we  had  n't;  it  cost  them 
more  money  than  the  job  was  worth.  Why,  if  I 
should  start  telling  how  we  saved  that  steamer  I  don't 
know  when  I  'd  get  through.  It  took  us  eight  solid 
months.  Yes,  sir,  and  that  meant  sixty  men  to  feed 
and  pay  wages  to — forty  in  the  wrecking-crew  and 
twenty  on  the  tug.  Oh,  but  we  did  have  trouble — 
trouble  all  the  time,  but  we  had  fun,  too,  especially 
when  some  o'  these  gay  Bowery  lads  we  'd  picked 
up  got  loose  on  the  mainland.  Talk  about  scraps !" 

Timmans  paused  as  if  for  invitations  to  spin  the 
whole  yarn,  and  these  he  immediately  received. 

"Tell  about  painting  the  alligator,"  urged  Hansen. 

"Oh,  that  was  a  bit  of  foolishness  me  an'  another 
fellow  done.  He  was  a  Dutchman,  and  got  me  to  help 
him  catch  an  alligator  one  day.  He  said  he  could 
bring  him  up  North  and  get  a  big  price  for  him.  Well, 
we  noosed  one  after  a  whole  lot  of  chasing  in  a  lagoon, 
and  kept  him  four  or  five  weeks,  but  he  would  n't  eat, 
and  the  boys  all  gave  us  the  laugh.  So  the  Dutchman 
got  up  a  scheme  to  paint  him  white  and  put  him  back 
in  the  lagoon.  His  idea  was  that  this  white  alligator 
would  scare  out  all  the  other  alligators,  and  then  we  'd 
capture  mebbe  twenty  or  thirty  on  the  banks,  and 
make  our  fortune." 

He  paused  a  moment  with  a  twinkling  eye,  and  Han- 
sen  snickered. 

"Well,  we  done  it.  We  painted  that  alligator  white, 
and  put  him  back  in  the  lagoon,  and  you  can  shoot  me 
if  those  other  alligators  did  n't  eat  him.  Yes,  sir; 
they  chewed  him  clean  up  before  we  'd  hardly  got  the 
ropes  off  him." 

"What  did  the  Dutchman  say?"  asked  Hansen, 
shaking  with  mirth. 

"He  stuck  to  it  his  idea  was  all  right,  but  it  was  the 


THE  DEEP-SEA  DIVER 


75 


blamed  alligator's  fault  for  being  too  weak  with  fast- 
ing to  fight  the  ones  as  were  n't  painted,  and  he 
wanted  somebody  to  help  him  catch  another,  but  no- 
body would." 


A   DIVER   AT   WORK   ON   A   STEAMBOAT  S   PROPELLER. 


Then  Timmans  came  back  to  the  saving  of  the 
wreck,  and  it  really  was  an  amazing  story  of  patience 
and  ingenuity  against  endless  obstacles.  I  doubt  if 
men  from  anywhere  but  America  would  have  carried 
such  a  hopeless  undertaking  through  to  success.  First 
they  rigged  up  a  wire  railway  from  wreck  to  shore, 
and  slid  off  a  valuable  cargo  of  alpaca,  silks,  and  beer 


76     CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

bit  by  bit  along  the  wire  to  land  (where  they  con- 
scientiously drank  the  beer).  Then  they  hitched  a 
hawser  to  the  steamer,  and  by  clever  engineering  man- 
aged to  drag  her  off  the  bar  against  the  river  current ; 
but  presently  this  current,  sweeping  down  from  the 
mountains,  grew  too  swift  for  the  wrecking-tug,  and 
she  in  turn  was  dragged  down  stream  against  all  the 
strength  of  her  engines,  and  saw  herself  threatened 
with  destruction  on  the  bar.  Then  the  captain  of 
the  tug,  in  his  peril,  ordered  the  hawser  cut,  and 
thirty-nine  men  of  the  wrecking-crew  were  left  to 
their  fate  on  the  abandoned  wreck.  Their  adven- 
tures alone  would  make  a  thrilling  chapter,  but  they 
were  rescued  finally  from  the  half-sinking  steamer, 
after  she  had  somehow  crossed  the  bar  and  wrecked 
herself  anew  in  the  breakers  some  miles  down  the 
coast. 

Then  weeks  passed  while  the  wrecking-crew  worked 
at  patching  the  steamer's  holes  so  that  she  would  float, 
and  every  day  Timmans  went  down  in  his  suit  and 
did  blacksmith  work  and  carpenter  work  on  her  torn 
plates  and  beams,  in  constant  danger  of  being  crushed 
in  the  deep  sand  trough  she  rocked  and  slid  in.  Some- 
times the  whole  iron  hull,  beaten  against  by  the  ocean, 
would  go  grinding  along,  breaking  down  a  wall  of 
sand  ten  feet  high,  almost  as  fast  as  Timmans  could 
walk.  And  to  be  caught  between  her  side  and  that 
wall  would  have  ended  his  days  forthwith.  Diving- 
suit  and  man  would  have  been  crushed  like  an  egg- 
shell. 

Finally,  when  she  was  ready  they  made  fast  a  six- 
teen-inch  hawser,  and  put  on  full  steam  to  pull  her  off 
into  deep  water.  Off  she  came,  and  all  was  going 
well  with  the  towing  when  a  fierce  tropical  storm  came 
upon  them,  and  the  steamer  turned  broadside  to  its 


THE  DEEP-SEA  DIVER  77 

fury,  and  the  great  hawser  snapped  like  a  kite-string, 
and  back  she  went  on  a  coral-reef. 

Once  more  they  began  at  the  beginning,  and  in  time 
had  another  hawser  ready,  and  tried  again.  This  time 
the  hawser  parted  by  grinding  on  the  beach  as  they 
dragged  her. 

Then,  after  long  delay,  they  got  a  sixteen-inch  haw- 
ser, wound  with  wire,  that  would  resist  the  friction  of 
rocks  and  sand,  and  all  wfould  have  happened  as  they 
hoped  had  not  a  sawfish,  sent  by  the  evil  power  that 
thwarted  them,  thrust  its  jagged  weapon  through  the 
hawser  strands,  piercing  the  wire  and  severing  the  big 
tow-line.  The  wrecking  company  still  shows  the  saw 
of  that  mischievous  fish  among  its  curiosities. 

So  Timmans's  narrative  ran  on  endlessly,  with  de- 
tails of  how  they  stopped  some  fresh  leaks  with  sixty- 
five  barrels  of  cement,  and  how  they  quelled  a  mutiny 
and  how  they  finally  got  the  steamer  off,  and  rigged  up 
a  patent  rudder  that  steered  her  over  twenty-five  hun- 
dred miles,  until  they  landed  her  home,  two  hundred 
and  fifty-odd  days  after  the  expedition  started.  All 
going  to  show  the  kind  of  stuff  American  wreckers  are 
made  of. 


V 


IN    WHICH    THE    AUTHOR    PUTS    ON    A    DIVING-SUIT 
AND    GOES    DOWN    TO    A    WRECK 

ONE  day  I  asked  Atkinson,  as  master  diver  of  the 
wrecking  company,  if  he  would  let  me  go  down 
in  his  diving-suit;  and  he  said  yes  very  promptly, 
with  an  odd  little  smile,  and  immediately  began  telling 
of  people  who,  on  various  occasions,  had  teased  to  go 
down,  and  then  had  backed  out  at  the  critical  moment, 
sometimes  at  the  very  last,  just  as  the  face-glass  was 
being  screwed  on.  It  was  a  bit  disconcerting  to  me, 
for  Atkinson  seemed  to  imply  that  I,  of  course,  would 
be  different  from  such  people,  and  go  down  like  a  vet- 
eran, whereas  I  was  as  yet  only  thinking  of  going 
down! 

"There  's  a  wreck  on  the  Hackensack,"  said  he; 
"it 's  a  coal-barge  sunk  in  twenty  feet  of  water.  We  '11 
be  pumping  her  out  to-morrow.  Come  down  about 
noon,  and  I  '11  put  the  suit  on  you." 

Then  he  told  me  how  to  find  the  place,  and  spoke 
as  if  the  thing  were  settled. 

I  thought  it  over  that  evening,  and  decided  not  to 
go  down.  It  was  not  worth  while  to  take  such  a  risk ; 
it  was  a  foolish  idea.  Then  I  changed  my  mind :  I 
would  go  down.  I  must  not  miss  such  a  chance;  it 
would  give  me  a  better  understanding  of  this  stiange 
business;  and  there  was  no  particular  danger  in  it, 
only  a  little  discomfort.  Then  I  wavered  again,  and 

78 


THE  DEEP-SEA  DIVER  79 

thought  of  accidents  to  divers,  and  tragedies  of  diving. 
What  if  something  went  wrong!  What  if  the  hose 
burst  or  the  air- valve  stuck !  Or  suppose  I  should  in- 
jure my  hearing,  in  spite  of  Atkinson's  assurance? 
I  looked  up  a  book  on  diving,  and  found  that  certain 
persons  are  warned  not  to  try  it — full-blooded  men, 
very  pale  men,  men  who  suffer  much  from  headache, 
men  subject  to  rheumatism,  men  with  poor  hearts  or 
lungs,  and  others.  The  list  seemed  to  include  every- 
body, and  certainly  included  me  on  at  least  two 
counts.  Nevertheless  I  kept  to  my  purpose;  I  would 
go  down. 

It  was  rising  tide  the  next  afternoon,  an  hour  before 
slack  water  (slack  water  is  the  diver's  harvest-time), 
when  the  crew  of  the  steam-pump  Dunderberg  gath- 
ered on  deck  to  witness  my  descent  and  assist  in  dress- 
ing me ;  for  no  diver  can  dress  himself.  The  putting 
on  a  diving-suit  is  like  squeezing  into  an  enormous 
pair  of  rubber  boots  reaching  up  to  the  chin,  and  pro- 
vided with  sleeves  that  clutch  the  wrists  tightly  with 
clinging  bands,  to  keep  out  the  water.  Thus  incased, 
you  feel  as  helpless  and  oppressed  as  a  tightly  stuffed 
sawdust  doll,  and  you  stand  anxiously  while  the  men 
put  the  gasket  (a  rubber  joint)  over  your  shoulders 
and  make  it  fast  with  thumb-screws,  under  a  heavy 
copper  collar.  Next  you  step  into  a  pair  of  thirty- 
pound  iron  shoes  that  are  strapped  over  your  rubber 
feet.  And  now  they  lead  you  to  an  iron  ladder  that 
reaches  down  from  rail  to  water.  You  lift  your  feet 
somehow  over  the  side,  right  foot,  left  foot,  and  feel 
around  for  the  ladder-rungs.  Then  you  bend  forward 
on  the  deck,  face  down,  as  a  man  would  lay  his  neck 
on  the  block.  This  is  to  let  the  helpers  make  fast 
around  your  waist  the  belt  that  is  to  sink  you  pres- 
ently with  its  hundred  pounds  of  lead.  Under  this 


8o     CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 


THE   AUTHOR   GOING    DOWN    IN    A    DIVER  S    SUIT. 

belt  you  feel  the  life-line  noose  hugging  below  your 
arms,  a  stout  rope  trailing  along  the  deck,  that  will 
follow  you  to  the  bottom,  and  haul  you  back  again 


THE  DEEP-SEA  DIVER  81 

safely,  let  us  hope.  Beside  it  trails  the  precious  black 
hose  that  brings  you  air. 

Now  Atkinson  himself  lifts  the  copper  helmet  with 
its  three  goggle-eyes,  and  prepares  to  screw  it  on.  The 
men  watch  your  face  sharply;  they  have  seen  novices 
weaken  here. 

"Want  to  leave  any  address?"  says  Captain  Taylor, 
cheerfully. 

I  admit,  in  my  own  case,  that  at  this  moment  I  felt 
a  very  real  emotion.  I  watched  two  lads  at  the  air- 
pump  wheels  as  if  they  were  executioners,  though  both 
had  kind  faces,  and  one  was  sucking  placidly  at  a  clay 
pipe.  I  thought  how  good  it  was  to  stay  in  the  sun- 
shine, and  not  go  down  under  a  muddy  river  in  a 
diving-suit. 

"Wait  a  minute,"  I  cried  out,  and  went  over  the  sig- 
nals again — three  slow  jerks  on  the  life-line  to  come 
up,  and  so  on. 

Now  the  helmet  settles  down  over  my  head  and  jars 
against  the  collar.  I  see  a  man's  hands  through  the 
round  glasses  crisscrossed  over  with  protecting  wires ; 
he  is  screwing  the  helmet  down  tight.  Now  he  holds 
the  face-glass  before  my  last  little  open  window.  "Go 
ahead  wid  de  pump,"  calls  a  queer  voice,  and  forth- 
with a  sweetish,  warmish  breath  enters  the  helmet, 
and  I  hear  the  wheeze  and  groan  of  the  cylinders. 

"If  you  get  too  much  air,  pull  once  on  the  hose," 
somebody  calls ;  "if  you  don't  get  enough,  pull  twice." 
I  wonder  how  I  am  to  know  whether  I  am  getting 
too  much  or  not  enough,  but  there  is  no  time  to  find 
out.  I  have  just  a  moment  for  one  deep  breath  from 
the  outside,  when  there  is  no  more  "outside"  for  me; 
the  face-glass  has  shut  it  off,  and  now  grimy  fingers 
are  turning  this  glass  in  its  threads,  turning  it  hard, 
and  hands  are  fussing  with  hose  and  life-line,  making 

6 


82     CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

them  fast  to  lugs  on  the  helmet-face,  one  on  each  side, 
so  that  the  hose  drops  away  under  my  left  arm,  and 
the  life-line  under  my  right.  Then  I  feel  a  sharp  tap 
on  my  big  copper  crown,  which  means  I  must  start 
down.  That  is  the  signal. 

I  pause  a  moment  to  see  if  I  can  breathe,  and  find 
I  can.  One  step  downward,  and  I  feel  a  tug  at  my 
trousers  as  the  air-feed  plumps  them  out.  Step  by 
step  I  enter  the  water;  foot  by  foot  the  river  rises  to 
my  waist,  to  my  shoulders — to  my  head.  With  a  roar 
in  my  ears,  and  a  flash  of  silver  bubbles,  I  sink  beneath 
the  surface;  I  reach  the  ladder's  end,  loose  my  hold 
on  it,  and  sink,  sink  through  an  amber-colored  region, 
slowly,  easily,  and  land  safely  (thanks  to  Atkinson's 
careful  handling)  on  the  barge's  deck  just  outside  her 
combings,  and  can  reach  one  heavy  foot  over  the  depth 
of  her  hold,  where  tons  of  coal  await  rescue.  A  jerk 
comes  on  the  life-line,  and  I  answer  that  all  is  well; 
indeed,  I  am  pleasantly  disappointed,  thus  far,  in  my 
sensations.  It  is  true  there  is  a  pressure  in  my  ears, 
but  nothing  of  consequence  (no  doubt  deeper  it  would 
have  been  different),  and  I  feel  rather  a  sense  of  ex- 
hilaration from  my  air-supply  than  any  inconvenience. 
At  every  breath'  the  whole  suit  heaves  and  settles  with 
the  lift  and  fall  of  my  lungs.  I  carry  my  armor  easily. 
It  seems  as  if  I  have  no  weight  at  all,  yet  the  scales 
would  give  me  close  to  four  hundred  pounds. 

The  fact  is,  though  I  did  not  know  it,  my  friends 
up  in  the  daylight  were  pumping  me  down  too  much 
air  (this  in  their  eager  desire  to  give  enough),  and  I 
was  in  danger  of  becoming  more  buoyant  that  is  good 
for  a  diver;  in  fact,  if  the  clay-pipe  gentleman  had 
turned  his  wheel  just  a  shade  faster  I  should  have 
traveled  up  in  a  rush — four  hundred  pounds  and  all. 
I  learned  afterward  that  Atkinson  had  an  experience 


THE  DEEP-SEA  DIVER 


THE  AUTHOR  AFTER  HIS  FIRST  DIVE.      THE  FACE-PLATE   HAS  BEEN 
UNSCREWED    FROM    THE    HELMET. 


like  this,  one  day,  when  a  green  tender  mixed  the  sig- 
nals and  kept  sending  down  more  air  every  time  he 
got  a  jerk  for  less.  Atkinson  was  under  a  vessel's 
keel,  patching  a  hole,  and  he  hung  on  there  as  long  as 


84     CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

he  could,  saying  things  to  himself,  while  the  suit 
swelled  and  swelled.  Then  he  let  go,  and  came  to  the 
surface  so  fast  that  he  shot  three  feet  out  of  the 
water,  and  startled  the  poor  tender  into  dropping  his 
line  and  taking  to  his  heels. 

Needless  to  say,  that  sort  of  thing  is  quite  the  re- 
verse of  amusing  to  a  diver,  who  must  be  raised  and 
lowered  slowly  (say  at  the  speed  of  a  lazy  freight  ele- 
vator) to  escape  bad  head-pains  from  changing  air- 
pressure. 

I  sat  down  on  the  deck  and  took  note  of  things. 
The  golden  color  of  the  water  was  due  to  the  sunshine 
through  it  and  the  mud  in  it — a  fine  effect  from  a  mean 
cause.  For  two  or  three  feet  I  could  see  distinctly 
enough.  I  noticed  how  red  my  hands  were  from  the 
squeeze  of  rubber  wrist-bands.  I  felt  the  diving-suit 
over,  and  found  the  legs  pressed  hard  against  my  body 
with  the  weight  of  water.  I  searched  for  the  hammer 
and  nail  they  had  tied  to  me,  and  proceeded  to  drive 
the  latter  into  the  deck.  I  knew  that  divers  use  tools 
under  water — the  hammer,  the  saw,  the  crowrbar,  etc. 
— almost  entirely  by  sense  of  feeling,  and  I  wanted  to 
see  if  I  could  do  so.  The  thing  proved  easier  than  I 
had  expected.  I  hit  the  nail  on  the  head  nearly  every 
time.  Nor  did  the  water  resistance  matter  much;  my 
nail  went  home,  and  I  was  duly  pleased.  I  breathed 
quicker,  after  this  slight  exertion,  and  recalled  Atkin- 
son's words  about  the  great  fatigue  of  work  under 
water. 

I  stood  up  again  and  shuffled  to  the  edge  of  the 
wreck.  Strange  to  think  that  if  I  stepped  off  I  should 
fall  to  the  bottom  (unless  the  life-line  held  me)  just 
as  surely  as  a  man  might  fall  to  the  ground  from  a 
housetop.  I  would  not  rise  as  a  swimmer  does.  And 
then  I  felt  the  diver's  utter  helplessness :  he  cannot  lift 


THE  DEEP-SEA  DIVER  85 

himself;  he  cannot  speak;  he  cannot  save  himself,  ex- 
cept as  those  lines  save  him.  Let  them  part,  let  one  of 
them  choke,  and  he  dies  instantly. 

And  now  the  steady  braying  of  the  air-pump  beat 
sounded  like  cries  of  distress,  and  the  noise  in  my  ears 
grew  like  the  roar  of  a  train.  All  divers  below  hear 
this  roaring,  and  it  keeps  them  from  any  talking  one 
with  another :  when  two  are  down  together,  they  com- 
municate by  taps  and  jerks,  as  they  do  with  the  tenders 
above.  I  bent  my  head  back,  and  could  see  a  stream 
of  bubbles,  large  ones,  rising,  rising  from  the  escape- 
valve  like  a  ladder  of  glistening  pearls.  And  clinging 
to  my  little  windows  were  myriad  tiny  bubbles  that 
rose  slowly.  The  old  Hackensack  was  boiling  all 
about  me,  and  I  saw  how  there  may  well  be  reason  in 
the  belief  of  some  that  this  ceaseless  ebullition  from 
the  helmet  (often  accompanied  by  a  phosphorescent 
light  in  the  bubbles)  is  the  diver's  safeguard  against 
creatures  of  the  deep. 

Well,  I  had  had  my  experience,  and  all  had  gone  well 
— a  delightful  experience,  a  thing  distinctly  worth  the 
doing.  It  was  time  to  feel  for  the  life-line  and  give  the 
three  slow  pulls.  Where  was  the  ladder  now  ?  I  was  a 
little  uncertain,  and  understood  how  easily  a  diver 
(even  old-timers  have  this  trouble)  may  lose  his  bear- 
ings. There !  one,  two,  three.  And  the  answer  comes 
straightway  down  the  line — one,  two,  three.  That 
means  I  must  stand  ready;  they  are  about  to  lift  me. 
Now  the  rope  tightens  under  my  arms,  and  easily, 
slowly,  I  rise,  rise,  and  the  golden  water  pales  to  silver, 
the  bubbles  boil  faster,  and  I  come  to  the  surface  by 
the  ladder's  side  and  grope  again  for  its  rungs.  How 
heavy  I  have  suddenly  become  without  the  river  to 
buoy  me !  This  climbing  the  ladder  is  the  hardest  task 
of  all ;  it  is  like  carrying  two  men  on  one's  back.  Again 


86     CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

I  bend  over  the  deck,  and  see  hands  moving  at  my  win- 
dows. A  twist,  a  tug,  and  off  comes  the  face-glass, 
with  a  suck  of  air.  The  test  is  over. 

"You  done  well,"  is  the  greeting  I  receive;  and  the 
divers  welcome  me  almost  as  one  of  their  craft. 
Henceforth  I  have  friends  among  these  quiet  men 
whose  business  it  is  to  look  danger  in  the  eye  (and 
look  they  do  without  flinching)  as  they  fare  over  river 
and  sea,  and  under  river  and  sea,  in  search  of  wrecks. 


THE    BALLOONIST 


HERE   WE   VISIT    A    BALLOON    FARM    AND   TALK 
WITH    THE    MAN    WHO    RUNS    IT 

I  NEVER  knew  a  man  who  has  been  so  many  things 
(and  been  them  all  fairly  well)  as  has  Carl  Myers 
of  Frankfort,  New  York.  They  call  him  "Pro- 
fessor" Myers  ever  since  he  took  to  ballooning,  years 
ago;  but  they  might  call  him  Dr.  Myers,  for  he  has 
studied  medicine,  or  Wrestler  Myers,  for  he  is  skilled 
in  all  tricks  of  assault  and  defense,  Japanese  and  others, 
or  Banker  Myers,  for  he  spent  years  in  financial  deal- 
ings, or  Printer  Myers,  for  he  still  sets  up  his  own  type, 
or  Telegrapher  Myers,  or  Lecturer  Myers,  or  Carpen- 
ter Myers,  or  Photographer  Myers. 

All  these  callings  (and  some  others)  Myers  has  pur- 
sued with  eagerness  and  success,  only  making  a  change 
when  driven  to  it  by  his  thirst  for  varied  knowledge 
and  his  guiding  principle,  "I  refuse  to  let  this  world 
bore  me."  To-day  the  professor  is  sixty  years  old 
(a  thin,  wiry,  sharp-eyed  little  man),  yet  I  suspect 
some  boys  of  sixteen  who  read  these  pages  feel  older 
than  he  does.  You  ought  to  hear  him  laugh !  or  tell 
about  the  air-ship  that  has  carried  him  over  thirteen 
States!  or  describe  his  "balloon  farm"  at.  Frankfort! 
I  don't  know  when  I  have  enjoyed  myself  more  than 
during  three  days  Professor  Myers  spent  with  me  some 
time  ago. 

Suppose  we  begin  with  the  balloon  farm,  which  is 

87 


88     CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 


certainly  a  queer  place.  It  is  a  joke  in  the  neighbor- 
hood that  the  professor  plants  his  balloon  crop  in  the 
spring,  gathers  it  in  the  fall,  and  stores  it  away  through 
the  winter.  Certain  it  is  that  in  summer-time  the  vis- 
itor (and  visitors  come  in  swarms)  sees  fields  marked 
off  in  rows  with  stakes  and  cross-poles,  on  which  bal- 


BALLOON-CLOTH    BY    HUNDREDS    OF   YARDS. 


loon-cloth  by  hundreds  of  yards  seems  to  be  growing 
(really,  it  is  drying)  ;  and  other  fields,  that  look  like 
an  Eskimo  village,  with  houses  of  crinkly  yellowish 
stuff  (really,  half-inflated  balloons)  ;  and  groups  of 
men  boiling  varnish  in  great  kettles  which  are  always 
getting  on  fire  and  may  explode ;  and  other  men  work- 
ing nimbly  at  the  knitting  of  nets;  and  others  experi- 
menting with  parachutes;  and  the  professor  paddling 
away  at  the  height  of  three  thousand  feet  for  his  after- 


THE  BALLOONIST 


89 


"FIELDS  THAT  LOOK  LIKE  AN  ESKIMO  VILLAGE." 

noon  "skycycle"  sail;  and  Mme.   Carlotta,  the  cele- 
.brated  aeronaut   (also  the  professor's  wife),  making 
an  ascension  now  and  then  from  the  front  lawn  in  a 
chosen  one  of  her  twenty-odd  balloons. 


90     CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

And  in  winter,  should  you  explore  the  upper  rooms 
of  the  house,  you  would  find  all  the  balloons  tucked 
away  snugly  in  cocoons,  as  it  were,  fast  asleep,  ranged 
along  the  attic  floor,  each  under  its  net,  each  ticketed 
with  a  record  of  its  work,  marked  for  good  or  bad  con- 
duct after  it  has  been  tested  by  master  or  mistress. 

For  weeks  at  a  time  in  the  experiment  season  a  cap- 
tive balloon  hovers  above  the  Frankfort  farm,  say 
twelve  hundred  feet  up,  and  the  tricks  they  play  with 
that  balloon  would  draw  all  the  boys  in  the  country,  if 
their  parents  would  let  them  go.  Three  guy-ropes 
hold  the  balloon  steady  like  legs  of  an  enormous  tripod, 
and  straight  down  from  the  netting  a  fourth  rope  hangs 
free.  Now,  imagine  swinging  on  a  rope  twelve  hun- 
dred feet  long !  They  do  that  often  for  tests  of  flying- 
machines  or  aeroplanes — swing  off  the  housetop,  and 
sail  away  in  a  long,  slow  curve,  just  clearing  the 
ground,  and  land  on  top  of  a  windmill  at  the  far  side 
of  the  grounds.  That  's  a  swing  worth  talking  about ! 
And  fancy  a  man  hitched  fast  to  this  rope  by  shoulder- 
straps,  and  as  he  swings  flapping  a  pair  of  great  wings 
made  of  feathers  and  silk,  and  trying  to  steer  with  a 
ridiculous  spreading  tail  of  the  same  materials.  The 
professor  had  a  visit  from  such  a  man,  who  had  spent 
years  and  a  fortune  in  contriving  this  flying  device, 
which,  alas !  would  never  fly. 

Professor  Myers,  like  most  aeronauts,  insists  that 
traveling  by  balloon,  for  one  who  understands  it,  is  no 
more  perilous,  but  rather  less  so,  than  ordinary  travel 
by  rail  or  trolley  or  motor  carriage.  He  points  out 
that  for  thirty-odd  years  he  and  his  wife  have  led  a 
most  active  aeronaut  existence,  have  done  all  things 
that  are  done  in  balloons,  besides  some  new  ones,  and 
got  no  harm  from  it — some  substantial  good  rather, 
notably  an  aerial  torpedo  (operated  by  electricity  from 


THE  BALLOONIST 


"A  PAIR  OF  GREAT  WINGS  MADE  OF  FEATHERS  AND  SILK  —  WHICH, 
ALAS!  WOULD  NEVER  FLY." 


the  ground),  which  flies  swiftly  in  any  desired  direc- 
tion, its  silken  fans  and  aluminum  propeller  under  per- 
fect control  from  a  switchboard;  also  the  "skycycle" 
balloon,  which  lifts  the  aeronaut  in  a  suspended  saddle 
and  allows  him,  by  the  help  of  sail  propeller  and  flap- 
ping aeroplanes  (these  driven  by  hands  and  feet),  to 
make  a  gain  on  the  wind,  when  going  with  it,  of  ten  or 
twelve  miles  an  hour.  On  this  "skycycle"  Professor 
Myers  has  paddled  hundreds  of  miles,  not  trying  to 
go  against  the  wind,  but  selecting  currents  from  the 
many  available  ones  that  favor  his  purpose.  "What  is 


92     CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

the  use,"  says  he,  "of  fighting  the  wind  when  you  can 
make  the  wind  fight  for  you  ?  People  who  take  trains 
or  boats  wait  for  a  certain  hour  or  a  certain  tide,  in  the 
same  way  we  wait  for  a  certain  wind  current,  and  there 
is  never  long  to  wait,  for  the  wind  blows  in  totally  dif- 
ferent directions  at  different  altitudes." 

"Can  you  know  with  precision,"  I  asked,  "about 
these  varying  currents  ?" 

"We  can  know  a  good  deal  by  studying  the  clouds 
and  by  observations  with  kites  and  other  instruments. 
And  we  would  soon  know  much  more  if  experimenters 
would  work  on  these  lines  of  conquering  nature  by 
yielding  to  her  rather  than  opposing  her." 

In  my  talks  with  Professor  Myers,  of  which  there 
were  many,  we  went  first  into  the  spectacular  side  of 
ballooning,  the  more  obviously  interesting  part,  stories 
of  hair-breadth  escapes  and  thrilling  adventure,  of  the 
fair  lady  who  assumed  marriage  vows  sailing  aloft  over 
Herkimer  County,  of  Carlotta's  recent  trip,  ninety  miles 
in  sixty  minutes  with  natural  gas  in  the  bag,  of  the 
English  aeronaut  who  leaped  from  his  car  to  death  in 
the  sea  that  a  comrade  might  be  saved  through  the 
lessened  weight,  of  two  lovesick  Frenchmen  who  duelled 
with  pistols  from  rival  balloons,  while  all  Paris  gaped 
in  wonder  from  the  earth  and  shuddered  when  one 
silken  bag,  pierced  by  a  well-aimed  shot,  dashed  down 
to  death  with  principal  and  second.  And  many  more 
of  that  kind  which,  I  must  say,  leave  one  far  from  con- 
vinced on  the  non-danger  point. 

Then  the  professor  dwelt  upon  various  odd  things 
about  balloons — this,  for  instance,  that  the  rapid  rise  of 
an  air-ship  makes  an  aeronaut  suffer  the  same  pain  and 
pressure  on  his  ear-drums  that  a  diver  knows,  only 
now  the  air  presses  from  inside  the  head  outward.  And 
relief  from  this  pain  is  found,  as  the  diver  finds  it,  by 
repeatedly  opening  the  mouth  and  swallowing. 


THE  BALLOONIST 


93 


And  he  spoke  of  the  strangest  illusions  of  sight. 
The  balloon  is  always  standing  still  to  the  person  in  it, 


PROFESSOR    MYERS   IN    HIS    "SKYCYCLE." 


while  the  earth  rushes  madly  along,  forty,  sixty,  ninety 
miles  an  hour.  As  you  shoot  up  the  first  half  mile  the 
ground  beneath  you  seems  to  drop  away  into  a  deep- 
ening bowl,  while  the  horizon  sweeps  up  like  a  loosened 


94    CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

spring.  Then  presently  this  illusion  passes,  and  you 
see  everything  flat.  There  are  no  hills  any  more,  nor 
villages ;  no  towers  nor  steep  descents,  only  a  level  sur- 
face, marked  charmingly  in  color,  sometimes  in  won- 
derful mosaics,  and  strangely  in  light  and  shade.  At 
the  height  of  two  miles  nothing  is  familiar ;  you  might 
as  well  be  looking  at  the  moon,  for  all  you  can  recog- 
nize. Roads  become  yellowish  lines;  rivers  brownish 
lines  (and  the  water  vanishes)  ;  a  mountain-range  be- 
comes a  shaded  strip,  with  less  shade  on  one  edge 
(where  the  sun  is)  than  on  the  other;  a  forest  becomes 
a  patch  of  color;  a  town  another  patch.  There  is 
scarcely  any  difference  between  water  and  land,  and 
you  see  to  the  bottom  of  a  lake,  so  that  the  configura- 
tion of  its  bed  in  valley  and  hill  are  apparent  through 
the  color  and  the  shading.  This  singular  disappear- 
ance of  water  bodies,  for  it  amounts  to  almost  that,  has 
an  evident  importance. 

"I  '11  tell  you  what  we  did  on  Lake  Ontario,"  said 
the  professor,  "as  a  result  of  observations  I  made  there 
from  a  balloon.  In  sailing  over  the  lake  on  one  occa- 
sion I  remarked  a  number  of  small  shaded  spots  which 
puzzled  me.  I  could  not  imagine  what  they  were. 
Finally,  with  the  help  of  powerful  field-glasses,  I  made 
them  out  to  be  wrecks  sunk  at  various  depths,  and  I 
realized  that  Lake  Ontario,  and  indeed  all  the  great 
lakes,  abound  in  vessels  which  have  gone  down  during 
centuries  and  never  been  recovered.  No  one  can  esti- 
mate the  treasure  which  lies  there  waiting  for  some 
one  to  reclaim  it.  And  I  saw  that  it  is  a  perfectly  simple 
matter  to  locate  these  wrecks  from  a  balloon,  and  to 
prove  this  I  organized  a  modest  wrecking  expedition, 
and  indicated  to  the  diver  where  he  was  to  go  down. 
Down  he  went  at  that  point,  and  found  the  wreck  I 
had  seen,  and  we  pumped  good  coal  out  of  her  by  him- 


THE  BALLOONIST  95 

dreds  of  tons.  What  I  did  then  on  a  small  scale  might 
be  done  on  a  large  scale  by  any  one  willing  to  under- 
take it." 

Of  course  I  asked  the  professor  why  it  is  that  an 
aeronaut  can  see  down  into  a  lake  better  than,  say, 
an  observer  in  a  boat,  and  he  explained  that  there  is  a 
great  gain  in  intensity  of  terrestrial  illumination  when 
the  viewpoint  is  at  a  height,  because  the  sun's  rays  con- 
verge toward  the  earth,  the  sun  being  so  many  times 
larger,  and  therefore  (this  is  his  theory)  a  man  lifted 
above  the  earth  gets  many  more  solar  rays  reflected  to 
him  from  a  given  area  than  he  would  get  if  nearer  to 
that  area.  In  a  word,  it  is  a  matter  of  optics  and 
angles,  but,  the  professor  declares,  most  assuredly  a 
fact. 

Never  before  these  talks  did  I  realize  how  busy  an 
aeronaut  is,  how  much  there  is  to  do  in  a  balloon. 
Besides  attending  to  valve-cords  and  ballast  there  is  the 
barometer  to  keep  your  eyes  on,  for  by  it  alone  can  you 
know  your  altitude.  Around  moves  the  needle  slowly 
as  you  rise,  slowly  as  you  fall,  one  point  for  a  thousand 
feet.  Rising  or  falling,  you  know  the  worst  or  the 
best  there.  Sometimes  the  needle  sticks,  the  barometer 
will  not  work,  and  you  must  cast  overside  pieces  of  tis- 
sue-paper to  see  by  their  rise  or  fall  if  you  are  going  up 
or  down.  By  your  senses  alone  you  cannot  tell  whether 
you  are  rising  or  falling,  or  your  distance  from  the 
earth.  That  is  most  deceiving.  Then  you  must  have 
your  watch  ready  to  reckon  your  speed,  so  many  thou- 
sand feet  up  or  down  in  so  many  seconds,  and  your 
map  spread  out  (nailed  to  a  board,  and  that  lashed 
fast),  to  tell  where  you  are,  and  your  compass  out  to 
fix  the  north  and  south  points,  for  a  balloon  twists 
slowly  all  the  time,  twists  one  way  going  up  and  the 
other  way  coming  down.  Nobody  knows  just  why 


THE  BALLOONIST  97 

this  is,  unless  it  be  the  unequal  drawing  of  the  seams 
as  the  fabric  swells  and  shrinks. 

"I  always  keep  the  mouth  of  my  balloon  within  easy 
reach,"  said  the  professor,  "and  play  with  it  as  an  en- 
gineer does  with  his  throttle-valve.  Sometimes  I  even 
tie  it  shut  when  I  am  sailing,  but  that  is  dangerous." 

"Why  dangerous?" 

"Because  the  balloon  might  ascend  suddenly,  and  the 
expanding  gas  burst  it." 

"Can  you  see  up  into  the  balloon,"  I  asked,  "through 
the  mouth  ?" 

"Of  course  you  can,  and  a  beautiful  sight  it  is.  You 
look  up  through  a  round  window,  twenty  inches  or  so 
in  diameter,  into  the  great  bag,  swelled  out  fifty  or  sixty 
feet  in  diameter,  and  perfectly  tight,  so  that  every  line 
and  veining  of  the  net  shows  plainly  through  the  silk  in 
exquisite  tracery,  and  wherever  the  sun  strikes  it  you 
see  a  spread  of  gold  and  amber  melting  away  in  chang- 
ing colors  to  the  shaded  parts.  The  balloon  seems  to 
be  perfectly  empty,  perfectly  still,  yet  it  swings  you 
upward  and  upward  like  a  live  thing.  You  get  to  feel 
that  your  balloon  is  alive." 

"Does  it  make  any  noise?" 

"Usually  not.  Now  and  then  there  is  a  creaking  of 
the  basket  or  a  rustle  of  fabric,  as  you  pass  from  one 
wind  current  to  another,  but  as  you  drift  along  there 
is  perfect  stillness.  I  know  nothing  like  the  peace  of  a 
balloon  sweeping  in  a  storm.  You  feel  like  a  disem- 
bodied spirit.  You  have  no  weight,  no  bonds;  you. 
fly  faster  than^the  swiftest  express  train.  More  than 
once  Carlotta  $as  raced  a  train  going  fifty  miles  an  hour 
and  beaten  it." 

"Is  there  danger  to  a  balloon  in  a  thunderstorm?" 

"Apparently  not,  but  it  is  terrifying  to  be  in  one. 
You  seem  to  be  at  the  very  point  where  the  lightning 

7 


98     CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

starts  and  the  thunder-crash  is  born.  All  about  you  are 
roarings  and  blinding  flashes,  and  it  rains  up  on  you  and 
down  on  you,  and  in  on  you  from  all  sides.  While  I 
never  heard  of  a  free  balloon  being  struck  by  lightning, 
it  is  a  common  thing  for  operators  on  the  ground  even 
in  fair  weather  to  get  shocks  of  atmospheric  electricity 
down  the  anchor  ropes  of  captive  balloons." 

Our  talk  drifted  on,  and  the  professor  told  of  excit- 
ing times  reporting  the  great  yacht  races  from  captive 
balloons  (with  reporters  turning  seasick  in  the  plung- 
ing basket),  and  remarkable  phenomena  observed  from 
balloons  and  double  colored  shadows  of  balloons  (called 
parhelions)  cast  on  clouds,  and  wonderful  light  effects, 
as  when  a  marveling  aeronaut  looks  down  upon  a  sea 
of  silver  clouds  bathed  in  sunshine  and  through  black 
clefts  sees  a  snowstorm  raging  underneath. 

I  was  surprised  to  learn  that  at  very  great  altitudes, 
say  above  three  miles,  the  voice  almost  fails  to  serve, 
or,  rather,  the  rarefied  air  loses  in  great  part  its  power 
of  voice  transmission,  so  that  in  the  vast  silent  spaces 
of  the  sky  one  aeronaut  must  literally  shout  to  another 
in  the  same  basket  to  make  himself  heard.  One  would 
say  that  the  great,  calm  heavens  resent  the  chattering 
intrusion  of  noisy  little  men. 


II 


WHICH    TREATS    OF    EXPERIMENTS    IN    STEERING 
BALLOONS 

IN  all  their  experiments  at  the  farm.  Professor  Myers 
and  Mme.  Carlotta  have  worked  on  individual  lines, 
he  striving  of  late  years  to  perfect  his  skycycle  (which 
is  simply  a  balloon  of  torpedo  shape  with  a  rigging  of 
propellers  and  fans  underneath),  while  she  has  been 
content  to  gain  skill  in  steering  a  balloon  of  ordinary 
shape  by  merely  moving  her  body  and  utilizing  vary- 
ing air-currents,  for  the  wind  blows  in  different  direc- 
tions as  you  ascend. 

It  is  remarkable  how  the  position  of  an  aeronaut's 
body  may  alter  a  balloon's  movements.  It  is  possible, 
for  instance,  to  make  a  balloon  ascend  or  descend,  with- 
out touching  valve  or  ballast,  by  a  simple  change  of 
position.  Stand  with  your  legs  apart,  straddling  from 
edge  to  edge  of  the  basket,  and  by  throwing  your 
weight  first  on  one  foot  and  then  on  the  other  you  will 
give  a  polliwog  movement  to  the  big  bag  above  you, 
and  it  will  go  wriggling  upward  head-first  some  hun- 
dreds of  feet.  Or  if  you  would  make  it  descend  (all 
this  the  professor  explained  to  me),  stand  with  your 
feet  together  in  the  middle  of  the  basket,  and,  catching 
the  balloon-neck  at  both  sides,  stretch  your  arms  wide 
apart  so  that  the  fabric  forms  a  chisel-edge,  then  sway 
your  hips  forward  as  far  as  you  can,  then  back  as  far 
as  you  can,  and  keep  doing  this.  Now  the  wriggling 

99 


ioo  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 


process  is  reversed;  and  this  time  the  basket  goes  first, 
"tail  wagging  the  dog,"  and  the  balloon  descends. 


MME.    CARLOTTA    STEERING  A   BALLOON   BY   TIPPING  THE 
FOOT-BOARD. 


This  ability  to  rise  or  fall  at  will  allows  Mme.  Car- 
lotta  to  pass  easily  from  one  train  of  clouds  to  another, 
and,  by  long  study  of  these  cross-moving  aerial  trains, 


THE  BALLOONIST  101 

she  is  able  to  pick  out  the  one  she  wants  for  a  certain 
destination  with  almost  the  precision  of  a  foot-passen- 
ger selecting  his  particular  street-car  or  changing  from 
one  to  another.  And  in  descending  she  has  learned  to 
steer  forward  or  back,  to  left  or  right,  by  tipping  the 
basket  foot-board  in  the  direction  she  wishes  to  take. 
The  balloon  follows  the  lowest  edge  of  the  foot-board 
as  a  ship  follows  her  rudder. 

An  almost  incredible  instance  of  the  skill  attained 
by  Carlotta  in  these  experiments  was  furnished  some 
dozen  years  ago  at  Ottawa,  where  she  made  an  ascen- 
sion never  forgotten  by  the  people  of  that  city.  It 
was  a  grand  occasion  in  honor  of  Queen  Victoria's 
gift  of  the  Crystal  Palace  to  her  loyal  subjects,  and 
Canada  had  rarely  seen  such  a  gathering.  Twenty- 
five  thousand  people,  as  was  estimated,  were  packed 
inside  the  Exposition  grounds  to  see  the  aeronaut  rise 
to  the  clouds.  And  there  at  the  appointed  time  stood 
Carlotta  on  a  raised  platform,  with  the  multitude  about 
her,  waiting  for  the  balloon.  She  wore  a  short  skirt 
over  a  gymnasium  suit,  and  made  an  attractive  pic- 
ture with  her  fine  figure  and  golden-bronze  hair.  So 
thought  various  city  dignitaries,  who  chatted  with  her 
admiringly  while  the  crowd  surged  about  them. 

Meantime  Professor  Myers  was  anxiously  watching 
the  manceuvers  of  some  Indians  hired  by  a  committee 
to  tow  the  balloon  from  gas-works  two  miles  distant, 
where  it  had  been  filled.  This  was  rather  against  the 
professor's  judgment,  for  the  Rideau  River,  flowing  by 
the  grounds,  offered  an  obstacle  that  could  be  overcome 
only  with  the  help  of  canoes  and  tow-lines ;  and  to  pad- 
dle a  big  balloon  across  a  river,  a  fresh-filled,  hard-tug- 
ging balloon,  is  not  a  thing  to  be  undertaken  lightly. 
And  in  spite  of  all  their  skill  these  Indians  found  them- 
selves presently  lifted  into  the  air,  canoes  and  all  (oh, 


102  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

they  were  badly  frightened  Indians!),  not  quite  clear 
of  the  water,  but  high  enough  to  make  it  doubtful  if 
they  would  ever  reach  shore,  and  highly  interesting  to 
the  crowd  which  pressed  down  to  the  river,  even  into 
the  river,  in  well-meant  efforts  to  help,  and  dragged  the 
balloon  up  the  bank  and  along  toward  the  platform 
with  such  eagerness  that  they  tore  great  rents  in  it 
that  let  out  the  gas  in  volumes. 

In  an  instant,  as  happens  in  crowds,  the  balloon  be- 
came the  center  of  a  struggling  mass  of  people,  who 
slowly  pressed  in  from  all  sides  to  see  what  the  matter 
was.  Now,  when  twenty-five  thousand  people  are  all 
pressing  slowly  toward  one  point,  it  is  apt  to  fare  ill 
with  those  at  that  point ;  and  had  not  Carlotta  acted  on 
a  flash  of  inspiration  there  would  surely  have  been  dis- 
aster in  that  merciless  crush.  She  looked  over  the 
shouting,  swaying  multitude,  and  in  a  second  saw  the 
danger — saw  women  held  helpless  and  fainting  in  that 
jam  of  bodies ;  saw  one  way,  and  only  one,  to  save  the 
situation,  and  took  that  way.  Stepping  off  the  plat- 
form, she  ran  lightly  and  swiftly  over  heads  and  shoul- 
ders, packed  solid,  and  came  to  the  balloon.  Such  was 
the  people's  fright  that  they  scarcely  felt  her  pass. 

"You  can't  go  up,"  cried  her  husband;  "the  balloon 
is  a  wreck." 

"I  must  go  up,"  she  answered;  "if  I  don't  these  peo- 
ple will  be  crushed  to  death." 

"There  's  a  hole  in  her  big  enough  to  drive  a  team 
through,"  he  protested;  but  already  she  was  in  the 
basket,  and  a  great  cheer  arose. 

"It  's  better  to  risk  one  life  than  many,"  she  an- 
swered with  decision,  and,  turning  to  the  crowd,  mo- 
tioned them  to  loose  the  car.  In  their  wonder  the  mad 
multitude  forgot  their  fear,  and  the  struggling  quieted. 
All  eyes  were  now  on  the  balloon ;  one  woman's  cour- 


'IN  SPITE  OF  ALL  THEIR  SKILL  THESE  INDIANS  FOUND  THEMSELVES  PRESENTLY 
LIFTED  INTO  THE  AIR,  CANOES  AND  ALL." 


104  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

age  had  quelled  the  panic.  The  danger  to  the  crowd 
was  past,  to  the  woman  just  beginning. 

"Wait  a  moment,"  shouted  Professor  Myers;  "you 
must  have  more  ballast."  But  in  the  din  of  voices  she 
misunderstood  him  and  cast  out  the  last  bag.  Then, 
with  a  great  heave  and  a  flapping  of  its  torn  sides,  the 
balloon  wrenched  itself  free  and  shot  upward,  a  cripple 
soaring  with  its  last  strength.  Up  and  up  it  went, 
higher  and  higher  as  the  small  store  of  gas  expanded. 
That  tattered  balloon,  with  its  seams  gaping  open, 
raised  itself  somehow  two  miles  over  the  city  of  Ot- 
tawa, and  then  almost  immediately  began  to  fall.  The 
gas  stayed  in  just  long  enough  to  lift  the  broken  bag, 
and  then  left  it  to  dash  downward.  Professor  Myers, 
heart-sick  on  the  ground,  turned  his  eyes  away,  sure 
that  he  had  seen  his  wife  alive  for  the  last  time. 

But  Carlotta  was  of  no  such  mind.  She  had  saved 
the  crowd,  now  she  would  save  herself;  and  even  as  the 
balloon  dropped  with  frightful  speed,  she  put  her  plan 
into  action.  Swinging  herself  up  on  the  netting,  she 
caught  the  flapping  silk  above  a  long  tear,  and  drew  it 
down  with  all  her  weight  until  it  reached  the  car.  In- 
stantly the  air  rushed  in  underneath,  and  bellied  out  the 
fabric  into  a  great  umbrella,  a  parachute  improvised 
from  a  ripped  balloon.  Now  they  were  slowing  up; 
they  had  put  the  brakes  on,  and  now  they  were  soaring 
easily,  drifting  with  the  wind.  Carlotta  drew  a  long 
breath  of  relief  and  looked  down.  They  were  still  a 
mile  above  ground.  She  had  the  runaway  in  hand,  but 
where  should  she  land  him?  Most  aeronauts  would 
have  been  thankful  enough  to  get  down  alive  anywhere ; 
she  proposed  to  do  a  feat  of  steering  as  well.  No 
doubt  there  was  some  gas  in  the  upper  part  of  the  bag 
to  help  her,  but  in  the  main  she  was  guiding  a  para- 
chute ;  and  she  guided  it  so  skilfully  by  tipping  the  foot- 


THE  BALLOONIST  105 

board  forward  or  back,  to  left  or  right,  that  she  landed 
finally  in  a  clump  of  evergreen-trees,  some  fifteen  miles 
from  Ottawa,  that  she  had  selected  as  the  very  place 
she  proposed  to  land.  And  great  were  the  rejoicings 
when  it  was  known  that  she  had  come  to  no  harm. 

The  story  had  an  interesting  sequel  the  following 
year,  when  Carlotta  made  another  ascension  from  the 
same  place. 

"Where  will  you  land  this  time?"  one  of  the  com- 
mittee asked  her. 

Carlotta  looked  at  the  clouds  a  moment,  then,  smil- 
ing, said,  "If  you  like,  I  will  land  exactly  where  I  did 
last  year." 

This  they  all  declared  impossible,  for  the  wind  was 
strong  in  just  the  opposite  direction;  but  Carlotta  in- 
sisted she  would  land  in  that  clump  of  evergreens  and 
nowhere  else.  And  she  kept  her  word.  She  had  ob- 
served that  at  a  certain  height  the  wind  was  favorable 
to  her  purpose,  and  by  the  same  tactics  of  seeking  the 
right  wind-currents  and  by  the  same  clever  foot-board 
tipping  she  reached  the  point  she  was  steering  for,  to 
the  general  wonder  and  admiration. 

My  acquaintance  with  Professor  Myers  has  given  me 
some  light  on  a  question  often  in  my  mind;  that  is, 
what  kind  of  children  these  men  have  who  follow  ca- 
reers of  danger  and  daring.  Will  the  son  of  a  steeple- 
climber  climb  steeples?  Will  the  daughter  of  a  lion- 
tamer  be  afraid  of  a  mouse?  And  so  on.  Of  course, 
with  both  father  and  mother  aeronauts,  as  in  this  case, 
it  would  be  strange  indeed  if  their  child  did  not  love 
balloons;  and  so  it  has  turned  out,  for  Miss  Aerial 
Myers,  now  a  girl  in  her  teens,  has  already  made  vari- 
ous ascensions,  and  enjoys  nothing  better  than  soaring 
aloft  on  her  father's  skycycle,  which  she  steers  skil- 
fully. Her  first  experience  of  a  voyage  in  the  air  is 


io6  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

memorable  for  two  facts,  that  it  nearly  brought  destruc- 
tion to  herself  and  her  mother,  and  drew  attention  to 
an  important  but  little-known  fact  in  ballooning  science. 

It  was  some  years  ago,  at  the  Syracuse  County  Fair, 
and  a  balloon  race  had  been  advertised  between  Carlotta 
and  young  Tysdell,  an  assistant  of  Professor  Myers. 
For  this  event  an  enormous  crowd  had  gathered  on  the 
grounds.  And  now  (by  what  tears  and  pleadings  who 
can  say?)  Miss  Aerial,  aged  eleven,  had  persuaded  her 
too  fond  mother  to  take  her  along,  and  off  they  went, 
amid  cheers  and  wavings,  with  a  strong  breeze  blowing, 
and  the  child  peering  down  at  the  dwindling  earth  over 
the  basket-side.  She  watched  the  roads  change  into 
yellow  streaks,  and  the  hills  swing  up  from  back  of  the 
horizon,  and  the  clouds  spread  away  below  them  like  a 
sea.  She  watched  her  mother  take  readings  of  compass 
and  barometer,  and  as  the  wind  swept  them  along  to 
new  view-points  she  would  cry  out,  "Here  comes  an- 
other town,  mama!"  and  clap  her  hands  as  the  town 
raced  by. 

Tysdell  won  the  race,  having  ballast  in  plenty  to 
throw  out,  while  Carlotta  had  little,  since  the  extra 
lifting-power  of  her  balloon  was  needed  for  Miss 
Aerial.  Now,  the  difficulty  of  managing  a  balloon  is 
much  increased  if  you  have  no  ballast,  for  then  you 
cannot  rise  at  will  to  enter  a  higher  wind-current  blow- 
ing the  way  you  want  to  go,  but  must  drift  where  the 
current  you  are  in  may  take  you.  And  the  current  they 
were  in  took  them  (such  is  the  perversity  of  things) 
straight  toward  a  deep  and  dangerous  lake.  Carlotta 
saw  where  they  were  going,  but  was  powerless  to  pre- 
vent it.  She  could  not  throw  Miss  Aerial  overboard 
like  a  sand-bag  to  make  the  balloon  go  higher,  although 
she  did  throw  overboard  everything  else  that  was  mov- 
able, even  to  her  jacket  and  shoes.  Then,  having  done 


MME.    CARLOTTA   CALLS    FOR   ASSISTANCE    FROM    ANOTHER   BALLOONIST 
THREE  MILES  AWAY. 


io8  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

all  that  was  possible,  she  waited,  clutching  the  basket- 
sides  with  anxious  fingers,  and  wondering  if  there  was 
any  way  to  safety. 

Suddenly  an  idea  came  to  her,  and  she  scanned  the 
heavens  for  Tysdell's  balloon.  No  sight  of  it  any- 
where. Tysdell  was  three  miles  away,  hidden  by 
clouds.  Nevertheless  she  lifted  her  voice  and  sent 
forth  a  loud  cry,  calling  his  name.  Immediately  the 
answer  came,  quite  distinct.  She  explained  their  peril, 
and  asked  Tysdell  if  he  could  come  to  them.  He  said 
he  would  try,  and  questioned  her  where  they  were  and 
what  wind-currents  had  borne  them.  Carlotta  told 
Tysdell  to  what  height  he  must  drop  (she  knew  her 
own  height  by  the  barometer),  and  in  a  very  few  min- 
utes, being  able  to  rise  and  fall  as  he  pleased,  he  was 
near  the  two  other  air-sailors,  and  got  his  balloon 
down  by  the  lake-side  in  time  to  help  them  ashore  when 
they  struck,  as  presently  they  did.  The  basket  splashed 
the  water,  then  skipped  along  the  surface  under  the 
drag  of  the  balloon,  and  was  caught  finally  in  the  arms 
of  a  tree  that  reached  out  from  the  bank.  And  the 
only  harm  done  was  the  spoiling  of  Miss  Aerial's  best 
frock ! 

Here  was  a  case  of  conversation  carried  on  easily  be- 
tween two  balloons  a  mile  or  so  above  the  earth  and 
three  miles  apart.  But  other  experiments  made  by 
Mine.  Carlotta  show  that  talking  between  balloons  may 
go  on  over  much  greater  distances,  a  reach  of  nearly 
eight  miles  having  been  accomplished  on  one  occasion 
near  Ogdensburg,  New  York.  The  explanation  of  this 
phenomenon  is  perfectly  simple.  Each  balloon,  while 
it  is  speaking,  acts  as  a  huge  megaphone  for  the  other, 
and  each  balloon,  while  it  is  listening,  acts  as  a  huge 
sounding-board  for  the  other ;  and  the  tighter  the  bal- 
loons are  kept  under  pressure  of  gas,  the  easier  it  is  to 


THE  BALLOONIST  109 

make  these  great  silken  horns  (for  such  they  are) 
throw  forth  and  receive  the  messages.  It  should  be 
noted  that  this  facility  for  voice  transmission  does  not 
exist  at  great  heights  because  of  the  rarefied  air.  At 
a  mile  above  earth,  however,  this  difficulty  is  not  pre- 
sented, and  it  may  be  that  a  superior  kind  of  wireless 
telegraphy  will  be  introduced  some  day  by  the  use  of 
talking  balloons.  Why  not? 


Ill 


SOMETHING   ABOUT    EXPLOSIVE    BALLOONS    AND 
THE    WONDERS    OF    HYDROGEN 

ONE  day  the  professor  told  me  about  some  rainfall 
experiments  with  balloons  that  he  conducted  years 
ago  for  the  government.  There  was  a  theory  to  be 
tested  that  loud  explosions  at  a  height  will  make  the 
clouds  pour  down  water,  and  some  gentlemen  in  the 
Department  of  Agriculture  were  anxious  to  set  off  as 
loud  an  explosion  as  possible,  say  a  thousand  feet  up 
in  the  air.  Professor  Myers  received  this  commission, 
and  proceeded  at  once  to  Washington  with  a  gas-bal- 
loon twelve  feet  in  diameter. 

"Don't  you  think  that  balloon  is  rather  small  ?"  asked 
one  of  the  gentlemen. 

"No,"  said  Myers;  "I  should  call  it  rather  large." 

The  other  man  shook  his  head.  "I  'm  afraid  it  won't 
make  noise  enough  to  test  our  theory." 

"Well,"  said  the  professor  (I  can  see  his  eyes  twin- 
kling), "if  this  balloon  does  n't  make  noise  enough 
we  '11  get  a  bigger  one." 

They  took  the  balloon  some  miles  out  of  Washington 
(the  professor  insisted  on  this),  filled  it  with  a  ter- 
ribly explosive  mixture  of  oxygen  and  hydrogen,  and 
sent  it  up  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile,  with  an  anchor- 
rope  holding  it  and  a  wire  hanging  down  to  a  little 
hand-dynamo  or  blasting-machine.  As  they  made 
ready  to  turn  this  dynamo,  Professor  Myers  lay  flat 

no 


THE  BALLOONIST  in 

on  his  back,  eyes  glued  to  the  balloon,  confident  but 
curious.  The  handle  turned,  a  spark  jumped  at  the 
other  end,  and  the  ball  of  silk  seemed  to  swell  enor- 
mously and  then  vanish  with  a  flash  of  a  thousand 
shivers  of  silk.  On  this  came  the  sound — a  smashing 
and  tearing  blast  louder  than  any  thunder-crash  or  roar 
of  cannon.  It  flattened  men  to  the  ground,  killed  hun- 
dreds of  little  fish  in  a  stream  near  by  (bursting  their 
air-bladders), knocked  over  a  bowling-alley  like  a  house 
of  cards,  frightened  cattle,  and  brought  down  rain  in 
torrents  within  eight  minutes.  The  Agricultural  gen- 
tlemen were  more  than  satisfied,  and  adopted  the  pro- 
fessor's system  for  extended  rainfall  experiments — 
only  these  (for  obvious  reasons)  were  removed  to  the 
lonely  and  arid  plains  of  distant  Texas. 

"It  was  n't  much  fun  living  down  there,"  said  the 
professor;  "but  we  got  rain  whenever  we  wanted  it." 

"What  would  happen,"  I  inquired,  "if  a  very  large 
balloon  filled  with  this  explosive  mixture  were  set  off 
over  a  crowded  city?" 

The  professor  shook  his  head  in  his  awed  contempla- 
tion of  this  possibility.  "It  would  work  fearful  de- 
struction. If  large  enough  (and  there  is  no  difficulty 
in  obtaining  such  a  size) ,  it  would  wipe  out  of  existence 
whole  blocks  of  houses  and  the  people  in  them.  It 
would  destroy  an  army." 

In  the  course  of  our  talks  I  discovered  a  mystic  side, 
very  unexpected,  in  the  professor's  nature.  He  used  to 
speak  of  hydrogen,  for  instance,  with  a  certain  almost 
reverence,  as  if  it  were  something  endowed  with  life 
and  consciousness,  a  powerful  spirit,  one  would  say,  not 
merely  a  commonplace  product  of  chemistry,  a  gas  from 
a  retort. 

"I  have  often  wondered,"  he  said  one  day,  "as  my 
basket  has  swept  me  along,  what  there  is  in  this  silken 


THE  BALLOONIST  113 

bag  above  me  that  lifts  me  thus  over  mountains  and 
cities.  I  look  up  into  the  balloon  through  the  open 
mouth,  and  I  see  nothing ;  I  hear  nothing ;  I  smell  noth- 
ing. None  of  my  senses  answer  any  call ;  yet  some- 
how, strangely,  in  a  way  I  can't  explain,  I  perceive  a 
presence.  It  would  not  be  at  all  the  same  to  me  were 
the  balloon  filled  with  air,  though  it  would  be  the  same 
to  all  my  senses.  Again  and  again  I  have  noted  this 
thing,  that  hydrogen  makes  itself  known  to  men  when 
they  are  near  it." 

He  paused  a  moment  as  if  to  observe  my  attitude, 
to  see  if  it  were  one  of  scoffing.  I  made  no  remark,  but 
begged  him  to  go  on. 

"After  all,"  he  continued,  "even  the  books  allow  to 
hydrogen  properties  that  are  very  amazing.  It  is  the 
lightest  of  all  things ;  it  passes  through  and  beyond  all 
things ;  it  is  the  nearest  approach  we  know  of  to  abso- 
lute nothing.  Who  can  say  that  it  is  not  related  to  the 
land  of  nothing,  to —  He  hesitated. 

"You  mean?"  said  I. 

"I  don't  know  what  I  mean.  I  only  wonder.  Take 
this  case  that  happened  at  Ogdensburg,  New  York, 
during  an  ascension  we  made  there.  We  had  filled  the 
balloon  with  hydrogen,  and  were  just  ready  to  start 
when  the  valve-cords  that  hang  down  inside  the  bag 
from  the  valve  at  the  top  became  twisted  and  drew  up 
out  of  reach  from  the  basket.  In  vain  I  tried  to  get 
them  free  by  poking  at  them  with  sticks  and  long- 
handled  things;  the  cords  would  not  come  down,  and 
of  course  no  sane  man  would  make  an  ascension  with 
his  balloon-valve  beyond  control.  There  was  nothing 
for  it  but  to  get  inside  that  great  gas-bag  and  undo  the 
tangle  with  my  hands.  So  I  called  fifteen  or  twenty 
men  to  catch  hold  of  the  netting  and  pull  the  strug- 
gling balloon  down  over  me  until  I  could  reach  the 
cords.  Then  I — " 


ii4  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

"Wait  a  minute,"  I  interrupted.  "Were  you  stand- 
ing inside  the  balloon  so  that  you  had  to  breathe  hy- 
drogen?" 

The  professor  smiled.  "I  stood  inside  the  balloon, 
but  I  breathed  nothing;  I  held  my  breath,  which  is 
one  of  the  things  I  have  practised.  Before  I  went  in- 
side I  told  my  wife  to  note  the  time  by  her  watch,  and 
if  I  did  not  come  out  before  one  hundred  and  twenty 
seconds  had  passed  to  have  the  men  drag  me  out.  You 
see,  I  knew  I  could  hold  my  breath  one  hundred  and 
twenty  seconds,  but  no  longer. 

"Well,  we  carried  out  the  plan,  and  I  freed  the  cords 
in  less  than  my  limit  of  time;  then  came  the  uncanny 
part  of  it — at  least,  it  seemed  so  to  me.  I  had  read 
that  hydrogen  will  not  transmit  sound,  but  had  never 
tested  it.  It  is  true  I  had  at  various  times  taken  hydro- 
gen into  my  lungs,  but  never  had  I  tried  to  speak  in 
hydrogen.  Now  was  my  chance,  and,  with  all  my  re- 
maining breath  I  shouted  as  loud  as  I  could  inside  that 
balloon.  Think  of  it ;  there  were  my  wife  and  the  men 
a  few  feet  distant,  with  only  the  thinnest  tissue  of 
silk  between  us,  and  a  gas  that  was  like  nothing.  Yet 
my  cry,  that  would  have  reached  perhaps  half  a  mile 
in. air,  could  not  penetrate  that  little  void.  To  those 
outside  the  balloon  it  was  as  if  I  had  not  opened  my 
lips.  They  heard  nothing,  not  even  a  whisper.  I  be- 
lieve you  might  fire  a  cannon  inside  a  bag  of  hydrogen, 
and  no  faintest  rustle  of  the  discharge  would  reach 
your  ears.  So,  you  see,  a  world  of  hydrogen  would  be 
a  voiceless  world." 

"Did  you  say  you  have  breathed  hydrogen?"  I  asked. 

"Yes ;  I  have  breathed  it  up  to  the  danger-point.  I 
know  all  the  sensations.  There  is  first  a  mild  exhila- 
ration, then  a  sense  of  sickening  and  head-throbbing, 
and  finally  a  delicious  languor  that  leads  into  stupor. 


THE  BALLOONIST  115 

When  you  get  there  it  is  time  to  stop.  In  making 
ascensions  we  have  to  be  very  careful  not  to  breathe 
too  much  gas  from  the  balloon-neck  which  hangs  open 
over  the  basket.  More  than  one  aeronaut  has  been 
gradually  overcome  without  realizing  that  he  was  in 
danger." 

The  professor  went  on  to  tell  of  other  singular  things 
about  this  subtle  gas,  notably  that,  speaking  within 
limits,  the  higher  you  want  a  balloon  to  rise,  the  less 
hydrogen  you  must  put  in  it.  If  you  fill  a  balloon  full 
of  hydrogen  it  will  rise  to  no  great  height  (and  is  very 
apt  to  burst),  since  the  gas  has  no  space  to  expand  in, 
and  the  way  to  keep  a  balloon  rising  is  to  make  it  ex- 
pand more  and  more  as  it  goes  up,  each  foot  of  added 
volume  displacing  a  foot  of  the  air-ocean  and  to  that 
extent  adding  buoyancy. 

''General  Hazen  and  I,"  said  the  professor,  "once 
planned  that  some  day,  when  we  got  an  appropriation, 
we  would  go  up  in  a  balloon  having  a  capacity  of,  say, 
forty  thousand  cubic  feet,  but  carrying  at  the  ground 
only  ten  thousand  cubic  feet  of  hydrogen — in  other 
words,  in  a  shrunken,  quarter-filled  balloon.  Of  course 
as  we  rose  and  the  air  became  rarefied  this  hydrogen 
would  expand  against  the  decreasing  air-pressure,  and 
at  a  height  of  two  miles  our  original  ten  thousand  feet 
of  gas  might  have  swelled  to  twenty  thousand  feet,  at 
five  miles  to  thirty  thousand  feet,  and  so  on.  The  last 
ten  thousand  feet  of  expansion  would  have  brought  us 
to  no  one  knows  what  height,  but  certainly,  we  calcu- 
lated, to  the  greatest  height  ever  reached  by  a  bal- 
loonist." 

He  explained  that  the  balloon  record  of  seven  miles 
claimed  for  Glaischer  and  Coxwell,  the  English  aero- 
nauts, is  not  reliable,  since  the  barometer  used  in  that 
famous  ascension  (it  was  made  at  Wolverhampton, 


ii6  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

England,  in  1862)  could  not  register  above  five  miles, 
and  what  was  accomplished  beyond  that  height  is  mat- 
ter of  pure  conjecture  and  must  be  less  than  might  be 
done  by  the  Hazen-Myers  plan,  since  Glaischer's  bal- 
loon (by  a  serious  oversight)  was  started  on  its  flight 
nearly  full  of  hydrogen,  instead  of  nearly  empty. 

"Oh,"  exclaimed  the  professor,  with  regretful  look, 
"why  don't  some  of  our  very  rich  men  think  of  these 
things !" 


IV 


THE    STORY    OF    A    BOY    WHO    RAN    AWAY    IN    A 
BIG    BALLOON 

ONE  of  the  professor's  hobbies  is  that  gas-balloons 
are  better  and  safer  than  the  hot-air  kind,  although 
the  latter  cost  less  to  operate.  Your  hot-air  balloon 
goes  up  with  a  rush,  but  comes  down  again  as  soon 
as  it  cools ;  and  in  the  coming  down  lies  the  danger.  A 
gas-balloon,  on  the  other  hand,  stays  up  as  long  as  you 
keep  gas  in  it,  and  the  professor's  secret  of  varnishing 
holds  gas  like  a  trap. 

As  to  the  ordinary  use  of  hot-air  balloons  for  para- 
chute dropping,  the  professor  has  only  condemnation. 
A  parachute,  says  he,  is  a  sin  and  a  disgrace — a  thing 
to  be  prohibited  by  law.  The  parachute  kills  more  peo- 
ple every  year  (the  professor  still  is  talking)  than  many 
a  battle,  and  kills  them  in  unpleasant  ways :  drops  them 
on  live  electric  wires,  which  shock  them  to  death; 
drops  them  in  lakes,  where  they  are  drowned,  or  in  the 
ocean,  where  they  are  eaten  by  sharks;  drops  them  in 
trees,  where  they  catch  by  their  coat-collars  and  choke 
to  death;  drops  them  on  sharp  railings,  which  spear 
them  through;  drops  them — but  the  professor's  list 
(backed  by  statistics,  be  it  said)  is  too  long  and  grue- 
some. It  is  only  fair  to  add  that  I  have  a  friend,  Leo 
Stevens,  a  professional  aeronaut,  who  has  made  thou- 

117 


n8  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

sands  of  drops  from  hot-air  balloons  and  claims  that 
nothing  is  safer  than  a  parachute,  and  says  he  can  steer 
one  in  its  downward  sailing  so  as  to  avoid  dangerous 
landing-places,  although  he  does  admit  numerous  hair- 
breadth escapes,  as  when  he  dropped  from  a  parachute 
two  miles  out  at  sea,  this  at  Long  Branch  in  1898,  and 
was  only  saved  by  his  life-preserver  and  the  courage 
of  some  fishermen,  or  again  when  De  Ive,  his  partner 
in  ballooning  ventures,  dropped  with  him  on  one  occa- 
sion from  a  big  balloon  (one  parachute  was  suspended 
on  either  side),  and  landed  in  Lake  Canandaigua  and 
was  drowned.  "Oh,  there  's  no  doubt  a  man  takes 
chances  on  a  parachute,"  said  Stevens,  "but  I  like  it." 

There  is  a  singular  thing  about  parachutes,  Stevens 
contends,  not  sufficiently  considered  by  Professor 
Myers  in  his  experiments.  The  professor,  with  his 
usual  thoroughness,  has  tested  all  shapes  and  kinds  of 
parachutes  by  dropping  them  from  a  captive  balloon 
with  a  sand-bag  hitched  on  instead  of  a  man.  The 
dropping  was  done  by  a  fuse  which  would  burn  the 
supporting  rope  and  at  a  given  moment  set  the  para- 
chute free,  just  as  a  man  under  the  parachute  would 
cut  it  free.  And  in  a  large  number  of  cases  the  para- 
chute did  not  open  in  time  to  save  the  sand-bag  man 
from  destruction  on  the  ground. 

"That  proves,"  argues  the  professor,  "that  para- 
chutes are  extremely  dangerous." 

"Nothing  of  the  sort,"  answers  Leo  Stevens;  "it  only 
proves  that  there  is  a  big  difference  between  a  sand-bag 
man  and  a  real  man.  The  sand-bag  is  dead  weight, 
and  the  man  is  live  weight.  A  parachute  will  open 
for  the  one  where  it  won't  open  for  the  other." 

"Why  will  it,"  queries  the  professor,  "if  the  man  and 
the  sand-bag  weigh  the  same  ?" 

"I  don't  know  why,  but  it  will,"   Stevens  insists. 


120  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

"If  what  you  say  were  true  I  'd  be  dead  long  ago,  and 
my  wife,  and  all  my  assistants." 

I  well  remember  my  first  visit  to  aeronaut  Stevens 
at  his  little  balloon  establishment  on  Third  Avenue,  a 
rambling,  go-as-you-please  attic,  with  things  strewn 
about  anyhow,  lengths  of  balloon-cloth  hanging  from 
rafters  for  the  varnish  to  dry,  crinkly  yellow  segments 
of  balloons  heaped  near  a  sewing-machine  that  was 
stitching  them  into  spheres,  rows  of  hot-air  balloons 
from  past  seasons  ranged  along  on  shelves  in  tight 
bundles,  models  of  flying-machines,  all  kinds  of  para- 
chutes, including  one  in  red,  white,  and  blue,  made  to 
take  up  a  dog,  and  in  various  dusty  corners  photo- 
graphs of  Leo  Stevens  walking  a  tight  rope,  Leo  Ste- 
vens rising  to  the  clouds  over  waving  multitudes,  Leo 
Stevens  (and  his  big  umbrella)  soaring  down  to  earth 
from  the  height  of  twenty  steeples,  swinging  with 
dancing-master  grace  from  the  bar  of  his  trapeze.  I 
liked  this  place  for  the  good-natured  faces  of  "Kid" 
Benjamin,  who  was  scooping  cold  salmon  out  of  a  can 
when  I  came  in,  and  a  young  lady  with  long  eyelashes, 
who  was  running  the  machine. 

Leo  Stevens  was  out,  said  this  young  lady;  he  was 
seeing  some  patent  lawyers  about  his  new  air-ship,  but 
she  was  Mrs.  Stevens,  and  could  she  do  anything  for 
me?  I  asked  various  questions,  and  she  answered 
them  from  a  wide  practical  knowledge.  She  had  made 
dozens  of  balloons  and  parachutes — yes,  and  used  them, 
too.  It  was  "Kid"  Benjamin  who  offered  this  latter  in- 
formation, remarking  that  she  was  "grand  on  a  para- 
chute." 

Mrs.  Stevens  smiled,  and  explained  that  she  had 
never  made  an  ascension  in  her  life  until  the  previous 
summer,  and  then  only  because  her  husband  was  in  a 
fix  through  the  failure  of  another  woman  to  appear.  A 


THE  BALLOONIST  121 

balloon  race  had  been  advertised  between  two  lady 
aeronauts,  and  when  the  time  came  one  of  them,  Miss 
Nina  Madison,  was  missing.  Rather  than  have  the 
thing  a  failure  and  a  big  crowd  disappointed,  Mrs. 
Stevens  agreed  to  go  up.  She  would  take  Miss  Nina's 
place  and  race  the  professional.  And  she  did  it,  and 
she  won  the  race. 

"You  see,"  she  said,  "I  did  n't  feel  nervous  as  an- 
other woman  might,  because  I  'd  been  living  with  bal- 
loons for  years.  Besides  they  hitched  me  fast  to  the 
parachute  ropes  so  I  could  n't  have  fallen  if  I  'd  wanted 
to.  It  was  lovely  going  up ;  everybody  said  we  made  a 
beautiful  ascension,  and  the  two  balloons  kept  so  close 
together  that  the  other  lady  and  I  were  talking  all  the 
way.  At  last,  when  we  were  up  about  three  thousand 
feet,  she  called  out  that  my  balloon  was  settling  and 
for  me  to  cut.  But  I  called  back :  'Cut  yourself,'  and, 
sure  enough,  she  did  in  a  minute,  and  I  watched  her 
parachute  open  out  and  sink  and  get  smaller  and 
smaller,  until  she  reached  the  ground.  A  few  minutes 
later,  when  I  saw  my  balloon  had  really  settled,  I  cut, 
too.  H-o-o-o,  what  a  sensation !  You  know  those 
awful  dreams  where  you  fall  and  fall?  Well,  it  's  just 
like  that  for  two  or  three  seconds,  until  your  para- 
chute fills  wide  and  springs  you  up  against  the  ropes. 
Then  you  sail  down,  down,  with  a  lovely  easy  mo- 
tion until  you  get  close  to  the  ground.  But  look 
out  for  the  landing.  Once  I  struck  in  a  treetop. 
And  you  're  liable  to  come  down  on  houses  or  any- 
thing." 

"You  're  liable  to  come  down  in  the  middle  of  a 
lake,"  put  in  "Kid"  Benjamin. 

"Do  you  go  up?"  said  I  to  the  "Kid,"  whose  hands 
and  face  showed  black  smears  from  painting  balloon- 
cloth.  He  was  certainly  not  over  eighteen. 


122  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

"Do  I  ?"  he  answered,  with  a  grin.  "I  made  more  'n 
twenty  ascensions  and  drops  last  summer." 

"He  's  the  one,"  said  Mrs.  Stevens,  "who  carried 
that  boy  up  hanging  from  the  parachute  ropes.  Don't 
you  remember?  At  Coney  Island?  The  boy  was 
helping  hold  the  balloon,  and.  when  she  started  his  foot 
got  caught." 

"And  he  went  up  hanging  by  his  foot?" 

The  "Kid"  nodded.  "Yep,  stuck  fast  in  the  rigging 
by  one  shoe.  As  I  sat  on  the  trapeze  bar  there  was 
that  boy  forty  feet  above  me  kicking  and  yelling.  Say, 
you  'd  never  guess  what  he  was  yelling  about." 

"I  suppose  he  was  afraid?" 

The  "Kid"  shook  his  head.  "No,  sir;  he  did  n't 
seem  to  mind  the  eight  hundred  feet  we  'd  gone  up,  not 
a  bit.  What  worried  him  was  sixty  cents  in  pennies 
and  nickels  that  had  spilled  out  of  his  pants  pockets 
while  he  was  upside  down." 

Then  the  "Kid"  explained  how  he  postponed  his 
parachute  drop  on  this  occasion  and  got  down  safely, 
boy  and  all,  by  letting  the  balloon  cool  off  and  gradu- 
ally settle  to  the  ground. 

"Is  n't  a  parachute  pretty  long  when  it  hangs  down  ?" 
I  asked. 

"Certainly.  It  's  thirty-five  feet  from  where  she 
hitches  on  t'  the  balloon  to  where  you  sit  on  the  bar. 
That  's  length  o'  ropes  and  length  o'  cloth  both." 

"Then,  how  can  you  cut  her  loose  from  'way  down 
on  the  bar?" 

"I  '11  tell  you,"  put  in  Mrs.  Stevens.  "You  just 
pull  a  tape  that  hangs  down  inside  the  parachute  from 
a  cutaway-block  at  the  parachute  head.  The  holding- 
rope  passes  through  that  block,  and  there  's  a  knife- 
blade  in  the  block  over  the  rope.  The  tape  pulls  the 
knife-blade  down,  and  away  you  go.  It  's  one  of  my 


THE  BALLOONIST  123 

husband's  inventions."  She  was  plainly  very  proud  of 
her  husband. 

Presently  entered  Leo  Stevens  himself,  a  surpris- 
ingly young  man  for  such  a  veteran,  scarcely  over 
thirty,  the  explanation  being  that  he  began  ballooning 
as  a  mere  child.  Before  he  was  ten  he  had  gained 
some  mastery  of  slack-wire  feats,  and  at  thirteen  he 
was  known  over  the  country  as  Prince  Leo,  a  marvel  of 
the  air,  in  black  and  gold,  making  the  fortune  of  some 
gentlemen  who  exploited  him. 

His  arrival  recalled  the  object  of  my  visit,  which  was 
to  get  from  him  some  practical  ideas  for  balloon  and 
parachute  experiments  on  a  small  scale,  the  sort  of 
thing  boys  might  undertake  in  their  own  backyards; 
and,  on  learning  this,  Stevens  caught  my  idea  at 
once.  He  knew  just  what  I  wanted,  and  was  glad  to 
help  me.  He  liked  boys  himself,  and  we  settled  down 
forthwith  to  a  consideration  of  segments  and  materials 
and  dimensions  and,  after  a  little  planning  and  meas- 
uring, he  had  the  problem  solved. 

"A  hot-air  balloon  is  the  easiest  and  cheapest  for 
boys  to  make,"  said  Stevens,  "and  it  goes  up  with  more 
of  a  rush  than  a  gas  balloon.  So  we  '11  tell  them  how 
to  make  a  hot-air  balloon.  I  remember  a  boys'  bal- 
loon picnic  that  I  got  up  one  summer  at  Chautauqua 
Lake  while  I  was  making  ascensions  there.  What  fun 
those  boys  did  have !  We  sent  up  a  kitten  in  a  straw- 
berry basket,  strapped  fast,  you  know,  so  she  could  n't 
fall  out,  and  the  basket  hung  from  the  parachute  by  a 
time  fuse  that  burned  loose  about  a  thousand  feet  up, 
and  down  came  the  whole  thing,  parachute,  kitten,  and 
all,  sailing  beautifully  and  landing  as  easily  as  you 
please.  It  never  hurt  the  kitten  at  all.  But  the  bal- 
loon drifted  nearly  a  mile  away  across  a  swamp  and 
stuck  in  a  big  tree.  What  a  time  those  boys  had  chas- 


i24  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

ing  it  and  climbing  after  it  and  slopping  home  with  it 
after   dark   through   the   swamp,    with    lanterns    and 
torches!     I  suppose  they  got  well   spanked,   a  good 
many  of  them,  but  boys  don't  mind." 
"How  big  was  this  balloon?" 

"About  eleven  feet  high,  inflated ;  that 's  a  good  size. 
I  mean  eleven  feet  high  inflated,  but  the  segments  must 
be  cut  out  eighteen  feet  long  to  allow  for  the  curve. 
See,"  and  he  made  a  sketch  of  a  single  segment. 
"There  must  be  fourteen  segments  like 
this,  each  one  eighteen  feet  long  and  two 
feet  wide  at  the  widest  part,  then  taper- 
ing to  a  point  at  one  end,  the  top,  and  to 
a  width  of  five  inches  at  the  other  end, 
the  mouth,  which  must  be  left  open. 
These  segments  are  made  from  ordinary 
sheets  of  tissue  paper,  first  pasted  into 
long  sheets  (use  ordinary  starch  paste)  and 
then  cut  out  after  the  pattern.  Then  the 
fourteen  segments  must  be  pasted  together 
lengthwise  along  the  edges,  and  they  will 
form  a  balloon  with  enough  lifting  power 
to  take  up  a  parachute  and  small  passenger, 
say  a  kitten  or  a  puppy." 

"We  must  tell  them  how  to  fill  this  balloon  with 
hot  air,"  I  suggested. 

"That 's  so,"  said  Stevens.  "Well,  it 's  very  simple. 
They  must  dig  a  trench,  in  the  yard  or  somewhere,  five 
feet  long  and  one  foot  deep,  with  a  hole  dug  at  one  end 
for  a  fire.  Then  they  must  cover  over  the  trench  with 
pieces  of  tin  and  spread  dirt  over  that,  and  boards  over 
all ;  this  is  for  a  good  draught.  Then  they  must  make 
a  fire  in  the  hole  at  one  end  of  the  trench  out  of  barrel- 
staves  or  anything  that  will  give  a  hot  flame,  and 
toward  the  last  they  might  throw  on  a  little  kerosene. 


THE  BALLOONIST  125 

That  's  exactly  the  way  we  make  our  fires  for  big 
ascensions. 

"At  the  other  end  of  the  trench  they  must  fix  a  length 
of  stove-pipe  sticking  straight  up  out  of  the  draught- 
hole  into  the  mouth  of  the  balloon  and  four  or  five  boys 
must  stand  around  on  fences  and  boxes  to  hold  the  side 
of  the  balloon  away  from  the  fire  which  will  shoot  high 
above  the  chimney.  Many  a  big  hot-air  balloon  has 
been  burned  up  that  way  on  a  windy  day,  and  in  our 
ascensions  we  have  dozens  of  ropes  sewn  all  over  the 
balloon  sides;  we  call  them  wind  guys,  so  that  men 
can  pull  the  cloth  away  from  the  fire  while  it  's  filling. 
Say,  talking  about  boys  getting  spanked,  I  must  tell 
you  a  story." 

The  story  was  from  his  own  boyish  experience — how 
he  made  his  first  trip  to  the  clouds  at  the  age  of  twelve, 
and  set  a  whole  city  talking.  This  was  the  city  of 
Cleveland,  Ohio,  where  on  a  certain  Sunday  afternoon 
there  was  to  be  a  balloon  ascension  at  the  great  pleasure 
park.  Young  Stevens,  of  course,  was  present,  wild 
with  excitement,  for  balloons  had  been  in  his  thoughts 
and  dreams  ever  since  he  could  remember.  He  pressed 
forward  through  the  crowd  and,  with  bulging  eyes, 
watched  the  aeronaut  arrange  his  barrels  and  pipes  for 
the  hydrogen-making,  danced  with  delight  as  the  great 
bag  swelled  and  struggled,  and  finally  was  bitter  in  dis- 
appointment when  the  police  appeared  suddenly  with 
orders  to  prevent  the  ascension,  because  the  day  was 
Sunday. 

Then,  while  the  balloonist  was  protesting  and  plead- 
ing, Stevens  formed  his  plan.  He  would  go  up  him- 
self instead  of  the  man.  There  was  the  balloon  all 
ready,  held  by  a  single  rope.  There  was  the  basket 
swinging  impatiently,  empty,  and  he  more  impatient 
than  the  basket.  Quickly  he  turned  to  a  boy  who 


126  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

was  with  him.  "Say,  I  '11  tell  you  what.  You  get 
a  knife  and  cut  that  rope,  and  I  '11  go  up."  But 
the  boy  demurred.  Anyhow,  he  had  no  knife.  So 
away  dashed  Stevens,  and  returned  in  a  jiffy  with  a 
knife,  taken  from  his  father's  shop.  It  was  a  sharp 
one. 

"There,"  panted  the  boy.  "Now,  cut  her  quick,  soon 
as  I  climb  in." 

The  people  about  were  so  occupied  with  the  par- 
ley growing  warm  between  balloonist  and  police  that 
few  paid  attention  when  a  little  shaver  in  knicker- 
bockers crept  close  to  the  basket  and  then  slipped  over 
its  side.  But  the  next  minute  nine  thousand  people 
paid  considerable  attention  and  shouted  their  surprise 
and  delight  as  the  eager  balloon  suddenly  shot  sky- 
ward, a  small  white  face  peering  down  and  trying  not 
to  look  frightened.  The  knife  had  done  its  work,  and 
the  subject  of  dispute,  abruptly  removed,  was  presently 
soaring  half  a  mile  above  the  city,  drifting  with  the 
wind. 

Meantime  little  Leo,  curled  up  at  the  bottom  of  the 
car,  was  saying  over  to  himself  a  story  he  had  read  of 
two  little  babies  who  went  up  once  in  a  balloon  and 
sailed  far,  far  away  and  never  came  back,  but  they 
might  have  come  back  if  only  they  had  been  strong 
enough  to  pull  a  string  that  hung  over  them.  Hello ! 
So  there  was  a  string  to  pull !  Well,  any  boy  could 
pull  a  string.  He  was  n't  a  baby.  But  where  was  the 
old  string?  He  must  look  about  and  find  it.  And 
sure  enough  he  did  find  it,  only  it  turned  out  to  be  a 
stout  rope,  and  he  tugged  at  it  valiantly  until  the  valve 
opened  and  the  balloon  began  to  descend,  just  as  the 
story-book  said  it  would.  And  so  occupied  was  Leo 
with  keeping  this  valve  open  that  he  never  once  looked 
at  the  wide  view  spread  beneath  him,  nor  knew  where 


THE  BALLOONIST  127 

he  was  until  he  came  bumping  into  a  treetop,  and  found 
himself  upset  among  the  branches,  which  first  tore  his 
clothes  to  tatters  and  then  dropped  him  into  a  muddy 
canal,  whence  he  emerged  a  sadly  battered  and  be- 
draggled aeronaut,  yet  happy.  And  even  when  his 
mother  chastised  him  that  evening  with  a  ram-rod  (his 
father  being  a  gun-maker)  he  remained  serene,  for  had 
he  not  gone  up  in  a  balloon,  and  was  not  the  whole  of 
Cleveland  admiring  him,  and  would  he  not  go  up  again 
(he  knew  he  would,  despite  all  promises  made  under 
ram-rod  stress)  as  soon  as  the  chance  presented? 

And  within  a  year  the  chance  did  present,  a  bait  of 
fifty  dollars  per  ascension  being  offered  the  lad,  and 
the  outcome  was  he  ran  away  from  home,  and  saw  no 
more  of  his  family  until  years  had  passed  and  he  had 
grown  accustomed  to  dangers  of  the  air  and  diamonds 
of  value  in  his  apparel. 

"Is  n't  it  queer,"  said  Stevens,  talking  it  over,  "how 
a  fellow  will  stay  away  from  his  people  when  every- 
thing is  all  right,  and  get  back  to  them  through  trou- 
ble ?  After  I  started  in  to  be  a  balloonist  I  never  saw 
my  mother  for  seven  years.  Then  I  came  once  more 
to  Cleveland  to  give  an  exhibition  at  the  very  park 
where  I  first  went  up — they  call  it  Forest  City  Park. 
I  was  to  perform  on  a  slack  wire  nine  hundred  feet 
long,  stretched  between  two  towers  one  hundred  and 
fifty  feet  high.  My  wire  was  n't  long  enough  to  reach 
all  the  way,  so  they  spliced  on  a  length  of  three  hun- 
dred feet  more,  and  before  I  began  my  feats  I  walked 
back  and  forth  over  the  wire  to  test  it.  I  always  do 
that.  Then  I  walked  to  the  middle  of  the  wire  and 
pretended  to  slip  and  fall — that  's  a  regular  trick  to 
startle  the  crowd.  You  let  yourself  drop  suddenly, 
catch  on  the  wire,  and  spring  up  again.  Well,  this 
time  when  I  let  myself  drop  I  did  n't  spring  up  again, 


128  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

and  I  did  n't  know  anything  more  for  nineteen  days, 
when  I  came  to  myself  in  the  Huron  Street  Hospital. 
Somehow  that  splice  in  the  wire  had  broken,  and  I 
went  straight  to  the  ground,  breaking  one  arm,  both 
wrists,  and  cracking  my  spinal  column  in  four  places. 
It  's  a  wonder  I  lived  at  all,  they  say,  and  during  that 
hard  time  my  mother  came  to  me,  as  mothers  do.  Oh, 
she  does  n't  love  the  balloon  business,  I  can  tell  you. 
But  I  love  it.  I  've  made  over  a  thousand 
ascensions,  and  never  been  badly  hurt  but 
once." 

We  were  far  away  now  from  our  balloon- 
making,  and  I  reminded  Stevens  that  we  had 
still  to  tell  the  boys  how  to  make  a  para- 
chute. 

"All  right,"  said  he;  "here  you  are,"  and 
he  gave  me  the  following  directions :  "The 
parachute  is  made  of  fourteen  segments  of 
tissue  paper,  each  one  like  this,  measuring 
thirty-six  inches  long,  six  inches  wide  at 
the  base,  and  tapering  like  the  pattern 
I  |  up  to  a  point.  These  segments  must  be 

pasted  together  lengthwise,  the  fourteen 
points  joining  at  the  top  of  the  parachute,  and  in 
each  one  of  the  fourteen  side-seams  a  length  of 
eighty  inches  of  No.  8  thread  must  be  pasted,  leaving 
two  inches  sticking  out  at  the  top  and  about  four  feet 
hanging  down  below.  The  short  ends  at  the  top  must 
be  tied  together,  and  these  made  fast  to  a  piece  of  iron 
hoop  pasted'  in  the  mouth  of  the  balloon.  Here  the 
fuse  must  be  placed  and  lighted  just  as  the  balloon  is 
ready  to  start.  A  five-minute  fuse  will  be  long  enough, 
and  it  must  be  so  placed  that  when  it  has  burned  its 
time  the  parachute  will  fall  from  the  balloon.  The 
long  ends  below  must  be  tied  to  a  curtain  ring,  from 


THE  BALLOONIST  129 

which  the  little  basket  hangs,  with  the  kitten  securely 
fastened  in  it  by  a  piece  of  cloth  pierced  with  four  holes 
for  the  four  legs.  This  can  be  brought  up  over,  the 
kitten's  back  and  tied  to  the  sides  of  the  basket.  In 
this  way  the  kitten  is  in  neither  danger  nor  discomfort. 
The  boys  must  be  careful  to  make  this  plain  to  mothers 
and  sisters,  or  their  experiments  may  be  stopped  by 
family  orders.  I  '11  guarantee  one  thing,  though,  if 
they  carry  out  these  instructions  carefully,  your  boy 
friends  will  have  a  fine  time." 
I  certainly  hope  they  will. 


THE   PILOT 

i 

SOME    STIRRING    TALES    OF    THE    SEA    HEARD    AT 
THE    PILOTS'  *CLUB 

OF  all  the  clubs  in  New  York,  I  know  none  where 
a  man  who  values  the  real  things  of  life  may 
spend  a  pleasanter  hour  than  at  the  Pilots'  Club,  far 
down  on  the  lower  water-front,  looking  out  of  lofty 
windows  in  one  of  those  great  structures  that  make  the 
city,  seen  from  the  bay,  a  place  of  wonderful  fairy 
towers. 

Here  on  the  walls  are  pictures  that  call  up  thrilling 
scenes,  as  this  painting  of  pilot-boat  No.  n  (they  call 
her  The  Phantom),  rescuing  passengers  from  the 
Oregon,  helpless  in  the  great  storm  of  1886,  sixty 
miles  beyond  Sandy  Hook.  We  shall  find  men  sitting 
about  these  rooms,  smoking  and  reading,  who  can  tell 
the  story  of  that  night  in  simple,  rugged  words  that 
will  make  the  water  devils  dance  before  us. 

Look  at  them !  These  are  the  pilots  of  New  York, 
greatest  seaport  in  the  world,  with  its  tidy  annual  total 
of  twenty-odd  millions  in  tonnage  entered  and  cleared, 
against  fifteen  millions  for  London.  These  are  the 
boys  (some  of  them  nearing  seventy)  who  bring  the 
mighty  liners  in  and  take  them  out,  who  fight  through 
any  sea  at  a  vessel's  blue-light  bidding,  and  climb  her 
fortress  sides  by  a  slamming  whip-lash  ladder  that 
shames  the  flying  trapeze.  And  this  in  trim  derby  hat 

130 


THE  OCEAN  PILOT  131 

(sometimes  a  topper),  with  gloves  and  smart  necktie, 
and  some  New- York  "Heralds"  tucked  away  in  a  coat- 
tail  pocket. 

Look  at  them!  These  are  the  boys  who  stay  out 
when  every  other  floating  thing  comes  in,  who  face  an 
Arctic  rigor  when  masts  are  barrel  big  with  ice,  and 
ropes  like  trees,  and  when  climbing  to  a  steamer's  deck 
is  like  skating  up  an  iceberg.  These  are  the  boys  who 
know,  through  fog  and  darkness,  the  call  of  the  whis- 
tling buoy  that  sings  at  the  mouth  of  Gedney's,  and 
can  say  "Good  morning"  to  every  bobbing  juniper-spar 
that  marks  the  long  ship  lane  (red  lights  on  starboard 
buoys,  as  you  come  in,  white  lights  on  port  buoys), who 
know  the  way  even  when  the  glass  and  iron  lamp- 
frames  are  all  but  sunk  with  ice — west-northwest  and  a 
quarter  west  for  a  mile  and  a  half,  till  the  beacon  lights 
of  Waackaack  and  Point  Comfort  line  out  straight  on 
the  Jersey  shore,  then  west  by  south  until  the  Sandy 
Hook  light  lines  with  the  old  South  Beacon,  then  a 
short  way  northwest  by  west  and  a  quarter  west  until 
the  Conover  Beacon  lines  with  Chapel  Hill,  and  so  on 
straight  to  the  Narrows. 

These  are  the  boys  who  know  every  rock  and  shoaj 
in  this  most  treacherous  bay,  with  its  thirteen  light- 
houses, its  two  light-ships,  and  its  eighty  danger  spots, 
marked  by  nun-buoys,  bell-buoys,  electric-light  buoys, 
whistling  buoys,  all  familiar  to  them  as  their  own 
homes. 

Great  boys  they  are  for  story-telling,  these  pilots, 
and  by  the  hour  I  have  listened  to  their  memories  of 
the  sea.  Two  things  made  deep  impression  on  me 
(so  do  we  of  less  heroic  lives  take  note  of  weakness  in 
the  strong) — one,  that  many  pilots  cannot  swim  (the 
same  is  true  of  deep-sea  divers),  the  other,  that  pilots, 
even  after  years  at  sea,  may  be  victims  of  seasickness 


132   CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 


THE   RESCUE   OF  THE   OREGON'S    PASSENGERS. 


like  any  novice.  Pilot  Breed,  for  instance,  as  trusty 
a  man  as  stands  at  a  liner's  wheel,  assured  me  that 
every  time  he  goes  out  for  duty  he  goes  out  for  torture, 
too.  And  he  does  his  duty  and  he  bears  the  torture,  so 
that  after  all  we  must  count  this  rather  strength  than 
weakness. 


THE  OCEAN   PILOT  133 

"How  can  you  do  your  work,"  I  asked,  "if  you  are 
in  such  distress?"  . 

"Because  I  have  to,"  he  answered,  with  a  wistful 
smile.  "You  know  sailors  are  often  seasick,  but  they 
go  aloft  just  the  same  and  work — because  they  have 
to.  You  could  do  it  yourself  if  you  had  to.  And 
yet,"  he  added,  half  shutting  his  eyes,  "I  've  many  a 
time  been  so  bad  when  we  've  tossed  and  tossed  for 
days  and  nights  on  the  watch  for  vessels  that  I  Ve  come 
pretty  near  to  dropping  quietly  overboard  and  end- 
ing it." 

This  he  said  without  any  special  emphasis,  yet  one 
could  see  that  it  was  true. 

"Why  don't  you  give  up  the  life?"  I  suggested. 

"Perhaps  I  would,"  said  he,  "if  I  could  do  as  well 
at  anything  else.  Besides — ': 

Then  came  the  queerest  reason.  His  father,  it  seems, 
a  pilot  before  him,  had  suffered  from  seasickness  for 
thirty-seven  years,  and  then  for  thirty  years  more  had 
been  quite  free  from  it.  "Now,"  said  Breed,  "I  Ve 
been  a  pilot  for  twenty-two  years,  so  I  figure  if  I  stick 
to  it  fifteen  years  more  I  may  be  like  my  father  after 
that,  and  have  no  more  trouble." 

Think  of  that  for  a  scheme  of  life ! 

Presently  another  pilot  joined  us,  and  set  forth  a 
remarkable  experience.  "I  was  taking  the  steamer 
Lahn  once,"  said  he,  "through  a  heavy  fog,  and  the 
captain  and  I  were  both  on  the  bridge,  anxious  to  locate 
the  light-ship.  You  know  she  lies  eight  miles  off  the 
Hook,  and  gives  incoming  vessels  their  first  bearings 
for  the  channel.  Of  course  we  did  n't  expect  to  see 
her  light — you  could  n't  see  anything  in  such  weather 
— but  we  listened  for  her  fog-horn.  How  we  did  lis- 
ten !  And  presently  we  heard  it.  You  get  accus- 
tomed to  judging  distances  over  water  by  the  sound, 


134  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

and  I  put  that  light-ship  at  five  miles  away,  or  there- 
abouts, and  I  was  n't  far  wrong..  Well,  we  headed 
straight  for  it,  and  heard  the  fog-horn  all  the  time  for 
about  a  mile.  Then  it  suddenly  stopped. 

"  'Hullo!'  said  I.     'What  's  up?' 

"  'Confound  those  light-ship  people/  growled  the 
captain.  'I  '11  make  complaint  against  them  for  stop- 
ping their  horn/ 

"  'Wait  a  little,'  said  I,  and  kept  listening,  listening 
for  the  horn  to  blow  again,  and  all  the  time  we  were 
running  nearer  to  the  shoal.  Pretty  soon  we  slowed 
down,  and  went  on  a  couple  of  miles,  then  another  mile. 
It  seemed  as  if  we  must  have  reached  the  light-ship, 
and  the  captain  was  in  a  state  of  mind. 

"Then  suddenly  the  fog-horn  sounded  again,  not 
four  lengths  away,  sir,  and  the  queer  thing  is  it  had 
been  sounding  the  whole  blamed  time — we  got  posi- 
tive proof  of  it  afterward — only  we  had  n't  heard  it. 
The  explanation  was  that  we  had  passed  through  two 
sound  zones — that  's  what  the  scientific  people  call  'em 
— and  I  can  tell  you  those  sound  zones  make  consider- 
able trouble  for  pilots." 

To  this  perplexing  statement  the  others  nodded  grave 
assent,  and  Breed  capped  the  tale  with  a  sound-zone 
story  of  his  own.  It  was  just  off  quarantine,  and 
he  was  turning  a  liner  to  bring  her  up  to  dock  when 
another  liner  came  along,  also  running  in.  Breed 
gave  the  signal  three  times  for  the  other  liner  to  port 
her  helm,  and  she  signaled  back  three  times  for  him  to 
port  his.  By  good  luck  each  vessel  did  the  right  thing, 
and  they  passed  safely,  but  neither  pilot  heard  the 
whistle  of  the  other,  and  each  made  angry  complaint 
that  the  other  had  failed  to  whistle;  yet  witnesses  tes- 
tified that  both  had  whistled,  and  each  one  swore  that 
he  had. 


THE  OCEAN  PILOT  135 

The  truth  was,  according  to  the  gentlemen  who  ex- 
plain acoustic  puzzles,  that  these  two  steamers  hap- 
pened to  be  placed  there  down  the  bay  like  two  people 
in  a  whispering  gallery,  who  cannot  hear  each  other 
where  they  are,  but  would  hear  plainly  if  they  moved 
further  apart  or  drew  closer  together,  so  as  to  be  in 
the  foci  of  sound.  Thus  it  was  that  distant  vessels 
heard  both  sets  of  whistles,  although  there  was  a  nearer 
region  where  these  were  inaudible. 

Investigation  has  shown  that  these  sound  zones  fre- 
quently establish  themselves  at  sea  (they  vary  in  extent 
with  wind  and  tide),  so  that  the  sound  of  horn  or  bell 
may  be  heard  for  a  mile  or  two,  and  then  become  in- 
audible for,  say,  two  miles,  and  then  become  audible 
again,  almost  as  plainly  as  at  first,  for  several  miles 
more.  The  theory  is  that  the  sound-waves  somehow 
go  skipping  over  the  sea,  like  a  flat  pebble  over  a  mill- 
pond,  in  long  jumps,  and  that  a  vessel  under  the  high- 
est part  of  one  of  these  jumps  is  out  of  the  sound 
influence,  but  will  come  into  it  again  by  going  ahead 
a  certain  distance  or  going  back  a  certain  distance. 
Whether  this  explanation  be  the  true  one  or  not,  the 
facts  are  abundantly  vouched  for,  and  are  believed  to 
explain  various  collisions  and  wrecks  that  have  long 
been  looked  upon  as  mysteries. 

"There  are  lots  of  queer  things  about  our  business," 
reflected  an  old  pilot.  "Now,  you  take  steamers, 
they  're  just  as  different  as  people;  each  one  has  her 
own  ways,  and  most  likely  her  own  partic'lar  kind  of 
crankiness.  They  talk  about  twin  steamers,  but 
there  's  no  such  thing.  You  can  have  'em  both  made 
in  the  same  yard,  with  every  measurement  alike,  and 
they  '11  be  as  different,  sir,  as — as  two  violins.  Why, 
I  never  saw  a  craft  that  'd  sail  the  same  on  both  tacks ; 
they  're  always  harder  on  one  than  the  other.  And  as 


136  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

for  compasses — well,  I  don't  suppose  there  's  ever  two 
that  came  into  this  port  with  needles  pointing  just  the 
same  way.  They  all  lean  a  shade  one  way  or  the  other, 
same  as  watches." 

"Lean  a  shade !"  put  in  another  man.  "I  've  known 
'em  to  lean  a  whole  lot.  I  Ve  known  a  steamer's  com- 
pass to  point  plumb  northeast  instead  of  north.  And 
that  time  we  nearly  went  on  the  rocks  by  it.  We  were 
coming  along  past  Fire  Island,  and  the  night  was  pretty 
thick.  I  felt  something  was  queer  and  would  n't  go 
below,  although  the  captain  wanted  me  to.  I  kept 
looking  up,  looking  up,  searching  for  the  north  star, 
and  pretty  soon  I  made  it  out,  or  thought  I  did,  through 
a  rift  in  the  blackness. 

"  'Hold  on !'  said  I  to  the  captain,  'something  's  the 
matter  with  your  compass.  There  's  the  north  star 
ahead  of  us,  and  it  ought  to  be  abaft  the  bridge.' 

"  'North  star  nothing,'  said  the  captain.  'You  're 
tired,  man;  you  need  a  rest.  Now,  you  just  turn  in 
for  an  hour,  and  I  '11  run  her.' 

"  'You  '11  run  her  on  the  rocks,'  said  I,  'inside  of 
fifteen  minutes  unless  you  pull  her  out  of  here.  I  tell 
you  that  compass  is  crazy.' 

"Well,  sir,  he  began  to  get  scared  when  he  saw  me 
so  positive,  and  a  little  later  he  pulled  her  out — just  in 
time,  too,  for  we  were  right  on  the  breakers  of  Long 
Island,  thanks  to  that  lying  compass.  I  Ve  heard  it  's 
the  magnetic  sand  at  Shinnecock  that  devils  compasses. 
You  know  there  's  acres  and  acres  of  it  along  there." 

This  led  to  a  discussion  of  magnetic  sand,  and  it  was 
edifying  to  see  how  well  informed  these  pilots  are  in 
the  latest  advances  of  science. 

They  set  forth,  for  example,  the  clear  advantage  of 
literally  pouring  oil  upon  furious  waters,  and  were  all 
agreed  that  the  foam  of  a  spent  wave,  spreading  around 


THE  OCEAN   PILOT  137 

a  life-boat,  will  often  protect  her  against  a  succeeding 
wave.  The  foam  seems  to  act  like  oil  in  preventing 
a  driving  w'ind  from  tossing  up  the  surface — getting 
a  hold  on  it,  one  might  say. 

"Taking  it  altogether,"  I  asked,  "do  you  men  regard 
a  pilot's  life  as  very  dangerous?" 

It  was  Breed  who  answered :  "Taking  it  altogether," 
said  he,  "I  regard  a  pilot's  life  as  about  the  most  dan- 
gerous going.  Here  's  a  little  thing  to  show  you  how 
fast  they  go,  these  lives  of  pilots.  When  I  was  re- 
ceived as  apprentice  there  were  eighteen  other  appren- 
tices ahead  of  me,  and  the  only  way  we  could  get  to 
be  pilots  was  through  somebody  dropping  out,  for 
there  were  never  more  than  just  so  many  licenses 
issued.  Well,  when  I  had  been  an  apprentice  for  three 
years  the  whole  eighteen  had  been  received  as  pilots, 
and  there  were  seven  vacancies  besides.  That  makes 
twenty-five  dead  pilots  in  three  years,  and  most  of  'em 
killed.  Why,  in  the  blizzard  of  1888  alone  ten  of  our 
boats  were  wrecked." 

At  this  there  was  a  solemn  shaking  of  heads,  then 
stories  of  the  taking  off  of  this  or  that  gallant  fellow. 
There  was  Van  Pelt,  one  of  the  strongest  men  in  the 
service — a  pilot  from  a  family  of  pilots — killed  by  the 
stroke  of  a  tow-line — a  big  hawser  that  snapped  across 
his  body  like  a  knife  when  the  towing-bitts  pulled  out, 
and  cut  him  clean  in  two. 

Then  there  was  that  Norwegian  apprentice,  who  was 
lost  when  they  tried  to  send  a  small  boat  after  Denny 
Reardon  on  the  Massachusetts,  in  the  storm  of  No- 
vember; 1897.  The  Massachusetts  was  loaded  with 
lions,  tigers,  and  .  elephants — the  whole  Barnum  & 
Bailey  show — and  Reardon  had  just  got  her  safely 
over  the  bar.  There  was  a  fierce  sea  on  that  night, 
and  Reardon  waited  at  the  steamer's  side — waited  and 


138  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

peered  out  at  the  flare-up  light,  while  the  boys  on  the 
New  York  tried  to  do  the  launching  trick.  And  in 
one  of  the  upsets  this  Norwegian  chap  was  swept  astern 
and  churned  to  death  in  the  screw-blades. 


.    ..: 


.T    RIDING   OUT    A    STORM. 


Then  there  was  Harry  Devere,  a  Brooklyn  pilot, 
who  happened  to  be  out  in  the  cyclone  of  1894,  miles 
from  land,  in  the  little  pilot-schooner,  with  its  jaunty 
"17"  on  the  canvas.  There  they  were,  riding  out  the 
storm,  as  pilot-boats  do  (facing  it,  not  running),  when 
up  loomed  a  big  West  Indian  fruiter,  burning  a  blue 


THE   OCEAN  PILOT  139 

light  forward,  which  meant  she  was  in  sore  need  of  a 
man  at  the  wheel  who  knew  the  dangers  in  these  parts. 
The  old  ocean  was  killing  mad  that  night,  air  and  water 
straining  in  a  death  struggle,  and  already  four  pilots 
had  been  carried  on  by  liners,  carried  on  to  Europe 
because  there  was  no  human  way  of  putting  them  off. 

To  start  for  that  vessel  now  was  madness,  and  every 
man  in  the  pilot-crew  knew  it,  and  so  did  Deyere. 
But  he  started  just  the  same.  He  said  he  would  try, 
and  he  did — tried  through  a  cyclone  that  was  sweeping 
a  whole  heaven  of  snow  down  upon  the  bellowing  sea 
as  if  to  smother  its  fury.  Down  into  this  they  went, 
three  of  them,  and  somehow,  by  a  miracle  of  skill,  got 
the  yawl  under  the  vessel's  lea.  Then  smash  they  were 
hurled  against  the  iron  side,  and  Devere  sprang  for 
the  rope  ladder — a  poor,  fluttering  thing.  He  caught 
it,  held  fast,  and  the  next  moment  was  torn  away  by 
a  great  wave  that  cast  him  back  into  the  waste  of 
waters.  And  so  he  perished. 

You  ought  to  hear  them  tell  these  stories ! 

On  the  whole  it  seemed  clear  there  is  danger  enough 
in  this  calling  for  the  most  extravagant  taste.  And 
the  chief  danger  is  not  this  boarding  of  vessels  in 
storms,  nor  yet  the  dancing  out  of  tempests  in  cockle- 
shell craft,  where  a  steamer  would  scurry  to  shelter; 
neither  of  these,  but  the  everlasting  peril  of  being  run 
down.  That  is  a  danger  to  break  men's  nerves,  for  al- 
ways, night  and  day,  the  pilot-boats  must  lie  in  the 
swift  track  of  the  liners — right  in  the  track,  else  they 
will  pass  unseen — and  it  must  be  known  that  this  is  a 
narrow  track,  a  funnel  for  the  ships  of  all  the  world, 
which  pass  ceaselessly,  ceaselessly,  converging  from  all 
ports,  diverging  to  all  ports,  in  storm,  in  fog,  in  dark- 
ness, and  there  the  pilot-boats  must  lie,  flying  their 
square  blue  flags  by  day,  burning  their  flare-up  lights 


140  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

every  fifteen  minutes  by  night,  waiting,  waiting,  in 
just  such  strained  suspense  as  a  man  would  feel  before 
the  rush  of  a  silent  locomotive,  sure  to  kill  him  if  he 
does  not  see  it,  before  the  rush  of  many  silent  locomo- 
tives which  come  while  he  sleeps,  while  he  eats,  perhaps 
while  he  prays. 

And  constantly  in  the  pilot  records  is  this  laconic 
entry:  "No.  8  run  over  and  sunk;  all  hands  lost." 
"No.  ii  run  over  and  sunk;  one  man  saved,  the  rest 
lost."  "Pilot-boat  Columbia  cut  down  by  a  liner;  ten 
men  lost."  No  chance  for  heroic  struggle  here,  no 
death  with  dramatic  setting  and  columns  in  the  papers, 
but  a  stupid,  blundering  execution  while  the  men  rest 
helpless  on  weary  bunks,  lulled  by  the  surging  sea — 
"run  over  and  sunk." 


II 


WHICH    SHOWS    HOW    PILOTS    ON   THE   ST.    LAW- 
RENCE   FIGHT    THE    ICE-FLOES 

NO  study  of  pilot  life  can  be  complete  without  men- 
tion of  the  river  pilot  who  has  to  face  perils  in 
the  rapids  not  a  whit  less  real  than  those  faced  by 
his  brother  pilot  on  the  sea.  I  got  my  first  glimpse  of 
the  river  pilot,  oddly  enough,  in  frozen  December  time, 
when  even  that  great  waterway  of  northern  America — 
I  mean  the  St.  Lawrence — was  all  but  a  solid  bed  of  ice, 
not  quite,  however,  and  to  that  chance  I  owed  a  glimpse 
of  Canadian  boatmen  at  the  hazard  of  their  winter 
work,  which  is  none  the  less  interesting  for  being  un- 
familiar. 

It  was  fifteen  degrees  below  zero,  just  pleasant 
Christmas  weather  in  Quebec,  and  the  old  river  of 
saintly  fame  was  grinding  along  with  its  gorge  of  ice, 
streaming  along  under  a  dazzle  of  sun,  steaming  up 
little  clouds  of  frozen  water-vapor,  low-hanging  and 
spreading  over  it  like  tumbled  fleece  in  patches  of  shine 
and  shadow,  quite  a  balloon  effect,  I  fancied,  as  I  came 
down  the  cliff. 

In  a  tug-boat  office  at  the  river's  edge,  chatting 
around  a  stove,  yet  bundled  thickly  as  if  no  stove  were 
there,  I  found  some  half  dozen  sharp-glancing  men, 
who  might  have  been  actors  in  New  York  or  noblemen 
in  Russia  (I  judge  by  the  fineness  of  their  furs),  but 
were  pilots  here,  lower-river  pilots  who,  as  one  of 

141 


142  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

them  assured  me,  are  vastly  more  important  than  the 
upper-river  kind. 

I  learned  also  from  one  who  wore  a  coat  of  yellow- 
ish-gray skins  with  otter  trimmings  that  they  were  a 
belated  company,  who  would  start  shortly  for  Orleans 
Island  across  the  ice.  That  was  Orleans  Island  there 
to  the  left.  No,  it  did  not  seem  far,  but  I  might  find 
it  far  enough  if  I  tried  to  get  there.  At  this  they  all 
laughed. 

Meekly  I  sat  down,  as  was  befitting,  and  listened  to 
the  talk.  They  conversed  in  bad  French  or  worse 
English,  and  were  most  of  them,  strange  to  say,  Scotch- 
men who  had  never  seen  Scotland  and  never  would— 
Douglasses  and  Browns  and  McGregors,  who  could  n't 
pronounce  their  own  names,  but  could  take  a  liner  to 
the  gulf,  day  or  night,  through  the  reefs  of  Crane 
Island,  past  the  menacing  twin  Pilgrims,  by  windings 
and  dangers,  safe  down  to  sea. 

I  asked  the  man  what  they  were  going  to  Orleans 
Island  for,  and  he  explained  that  they  lived  there 
through  the  winter  months — they  and  other  pilots, 
many  others.  It  was  a  pilot  colony,  set  out  in  mid- 
stream. Yes,  it  was  cut  off  from  the  land,  quite  cut 
off;  they  liked  it  so.  Sometimes  they  did  n't  come 
ashore  for  weeks ;  it  was  not  exactly  fun  fighting  those 
ice-floes.  And  they  all  laughed  again;  well,  not  ex- 
actly ! 

Meantime  several  jolly  little  cutters,  no  higher  than 
cradles,  had  jingled  up  with  more  men  in  furs  and  one 
woman.  Also  boxes  and  bundles. 

"Pilots?"  I  asked. 

The  man  nodded. 

"And  the  woman?" 

"Dees  lady,  pilot's  wife.  She  been  seek."  And  he 
went  on  in  a  jargon  that  is  charming,  but  not  for  imi- 


THE   RIVER   PILOT  143 

tation,  to  explain  that  they  would  lay  the  sick  lady  in 
the  bottom  of  the  boat  and  pile  coats  over  her  and 
around  her  until  it  was  tolerably  sure  she  could  n't 
freeze.  From  the  way  he  spoke  one  would  fancy  they 
were  about  to  start  for  the  North  Pole,  but  I  presently 
understood  that  this  two-mile  ice  journey  over  the 
crackling  St.  Lawrence — the  crackling  comes  from  the 
ice-crust  breaking  as  the  tide  drops  under  it — is  about 
as  hard  a  test  of  men's  endurance  as  any  Arctic  per- 
formance. 

They  were  all  gathered  now  save  one,  whose  cutter 
tarried  still.  He  was  a  good  pilot,  but  overfond  of  the 
convivial  glass,  and  was  no  doubt  this  very  moment  in 
some  uproarious  company,  forgetful  that  the  start  was 
to  be  sharp  on  the'  hour.  Well,  they  would  give  him 
ten  minutes  more,  say  fifteen  minutes,  pauvre  gar$on. 

Then  they  fell  to  discussing  winter  navigation,  and 
whether  it  would  ever  come  on  the  St.  Lawrence  as  it 
had  on  rivers  in  Russia.  A  pilot  in  coon-skins  was 
sure  it  would  come;  they  would  put  on  one  of  these 
new-fangled  ice-crunching  steamers  to  keep  the  main 
channel  open,  and,  sacre  bleu,  there  you  are!  That 
would  save  five  months  every  year.  But  the  others 
shook  their  heads;  they  did  n't  believe  it,  and  did  n't 
want  it  anyway.  A  pilot,  sir,  must  have  a  certain  time 
to  smoke  his  pipe! 

Then  one  man  told  what  the  ice  did  to  a  sailing- 
vessel  he  was  taking  down  the  river  late  one  season. 
He  hoped  never  to  take  another  down  so  late.  He 
had  got  out  of  his  course  one  night  in  the  dangerous 
ways  off  Crane  Island,  and  finally  dropped  anchor  to 
hold  her  against  the  crush  of  ice.  But  the  anchor  chain 
snapped  like  shoe-string  under  the  ice  pressure,  and 
they  were  borne  along  on  a  glacier-field  until  they 
struck  on  a  reef — just  what  he  had  feared.  Now,  the 


144  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

ice  could  neither  break  the  reef  nor  drive  them  over 
it,  but  it  ground  its  way  right  through  the  schooner's 
stern,  ripping  her  wide  open,  so  that  the  river  poured 
in,  and  down  they  went  until  the  yard-arms  touched 
the  hummocks,  with  pilot  and  crew  left  to  scramble 
over  the  floe  as  best  they  could  in  the  darkness,  and 
wait  for  daylight  on  the  frozen  rocks. 

At  this  the  others,  taking  up  the  cue  of  thrilling  hap- 
penings, told  stories  of  dangers  on  the  river  one  after 
another  until  the  tardy  pilot,  who  had  jingled  up  mean- 
while unnoticed,  was  in  his  turn  forced  to  wait  for 
them. 

"I  was  just  putting  off  one  night,"  began  a  tall  man, 
who  spoke  better  English  than  the  rest,  "just  putting 
off  from  this  very  place — " 

"Thash  nothing,"  interrupted  the  later  comer,  "I 
shaw  sh-sword  fish  clashe  a  wh-whale  once  off  Sague- 
nay  River,  an  wh-whale — an  sh-sword  fish—  "  then  he 
mumbled  to  himself  and  dozed  by  the  stove. 

The  tall  man  went  on  with  his  tale,  which  described 
how,  on  the  night  in  question,  he  was  about  to  board  a 
down-coming  steamer  of  the  Leyland  line  (he  was  to 
take  the  place  of  the  Montreal  pilot),  when  she  crashed 
into  a  tramp  steamer  coming  up  in  a  head-on  collision, 
and  two  sailors  sleeping  in  their  bunks  were  instantly 
killed.  He  described  the  panic  that  ensued,  and  told 
what  they  did,  and  wound  up  with  a  queer  theory 
(which  he  declared  perfectly  sound,  and  the  others 
agreed  with  him)  that  the  growth  of  cities  along  the 
river  is  every  year  increasing  the  danger  of  such  night 
collisions  through  the  dazzle  of  lights. 

Presently  we  started  for  the  boats.  A  burly  line, 
with  caps  reaching  down,  and  collars  reaching  up, 
until  everything  was  covered — ears,  forehead,  chin, 
everything  but  a  peeping  place  for  nose  and  eyes.  I 


THE   RIVER    PILOT 


RIVER-BUOYS    ON    THE    BANK    FOR    THE    WINTER. 


can  still  hear  the  squeak  and  crunch  of  snow  under 
foot,  and  see  the  glare  of  it.  We  passed  a  snow-field, 
where  the  river-buoys  are  left  through  winter,  spar- 
buoys,  gas-buoys,  and  bell-buoys  ranged  along  now 
like  great  red  tops  numbed  by  the  cold  to  sleep. 

Then  they  put  off  in  the  boats — three  open  boats — 
that  are  sleds  as  well,  with  runners  on  the  flat  bottoms 
and  ends  turned  up  in  an  easy  slant,  so  that  when  the 
broken  ice  gets  too  thick  for  paddling  they  may  be 
hauled  up  to  slide  over  it.  This  queer  method  of  tran- 
sit is  practised  on  the  St.  Lawrence,  by  those  who  dare, 
during  certain  weeks  of  winter  when  the  river  is  no 
longer  open  nor  yet  frozen  into  a  solid  ice-bridge,  but 
partly  open  and  partly  solid.  So  it  was  now. 

The  first  rule  of  the  boats  is  that  every  man  lay  hand 


146  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

to  paddle  and  work.  There  are  no  passengers  here  but 
the  sick,  and  they  are  rarely  taken.  Not  that  the  pilots 
would  mind  paddling  other  men  across,  but  the  other 
men  would  almost  certainly  freeze  if  they  sat  still. 
There  is  no  safety  against  the  blasts  that  sweep  this 
river,  when  the  glass  says  twenty  below,  but  in  vigor- 
ous, ceaseless  exertion. 

So  there  they  go  through  the  ice-choked  river,  swing- 
ing their  paddles  lustily,  every  pilot  of  them,  heads 
nodding  under  black  astrakhan  caps,  shoulders  heaving, 
off  for  home.  Now  they  strike  the  first  solid  place, 
and  the  men  forward  climb  out  carefully  and  heave  up 
the  boat's  nose  a  couple  of  feet  to  see  if  the  ice  will 
hold  her.  Then  all  climb  out,  and  with  dragging  and 
pushing  get  ahead  for  a  hundred  feet  or  so.  See,  now 
they  stop  and  swing  their  arms !  Already  the  pitiless 
wind  is  biting  through  their  furs.  And  think  of  that 
poor  woman ! 

Presently  they  reach  an  open  spot  some  dozen  yards 
across,  and  all  but  one  take  places  in  the  boat,  the  stern 
man  standing  behind  on  the  ice  to  push  off,  and  then, 
with  nicely  judged  effort,  spring  aboard  as  he  gives  the 
last  impulse  that  shoots  her  into  the  river. 

From  the  open  space  they  paddle  into  a  jam  of  grind- 
ing ice-blocks  that  hold  hard  against  them,  but  are 
scarce  solid  enough  to  bear  the  sledges.  They  must 
work  through  somehow,  poling  and  fending,  to  yonder 
heaped-up  ledge,  where  up  they  go  again  on  a  great 
rough  raft  of  ice  that  will  test  their  muscles  and  their 
skill  before  they  get  across,  and  drift  them  a  quarter 
of  a  mile  or  so  up-stream  while  they  are  doing  it. 

Up-stream,  did  I  say?  Yes,  for  there  is  this  odd 
thing  about  the  St.  Lawrence,  even  at  Quebec,  that  its 
current  streams  up  and  down,  up  and  down,  as  the  tide 
changes.  For  seven  hours  the  river  conquers  the  tide, 


THE   RIVER    PILOT  147 

and  the  water  runs  down  to  sea.  Then  for  five  hours 
the  tide  conquers  the  river,  and  the  water  runs  up  from 
the  sea.  So  now,  after  all  their  toiling,  they  are  actu- 
ally further  from  home  than  when  they  started.  They 
should  have  set  out  just  before  the  turn  of  tide  (that 
was  their  plan),  but  they  waited  until  just  after  the 
turn,  and  will  pay  for  the  delay  and  their  yarn  spin- 
ning with  an  hour  more  of  this  ice-fighting  than  they 
need  have  had — and  an  hour  out  there  is  a  long,  long 
time. 

Even  here,  on  the  bank,  much  less  than  an  hour  is 
enough  of  time.  The  cold  grows  piercing.  The  day 
is  drawing  to  a  close.  The  sky  is  dull.  The  river 
grinds  on  with  its  grayish  burden.  On  the  heights  of 
Levis,  opposite,  some  lights  of  early  evening  break  out. 
There  also  pilots  live,  Indians  come  from  an  Indian  vil- 
lage down  the  river,  where  they  make  the  peerless  birch 
canoes.  All  along  this  grand  St.  Lawrence  live  men 
whose  business  it  is  to  face  unusual  perils,  whose  nerve 
fails  them  not,  whether  paddling  some  frail  bark 
through  furious  rapids  or  guiding  a  steamboat  down  a 
raging  torrent,  with  many  lives  in  their  keeping. 

We  must  see  more  of  these  men,  and  watch  them  at 
their  work.  We  must  see  the  Iroquois  pilots  at  their 
reservation  near  Montreal,  the  lads  Lord  Wolseley  took 
with  him  up  the  Nile  to  brave  its  cataracts,  when  the 
English  set  out,  in  1884,  to  bring  relief  to  Gordon.  We 
must  see  "Big  John,"  famous  now  for  years  as  wheels- 
man of  the  great  excursion  boats  that  shoot  the  rage 
of  waters  at  Lachine.  We  must  see  the  raftsmen,  too, 
and — ah,  but  it  is  cold  here! — let  us  climb  the  cliff 
again  and  find  some  shelter. 


Ill 


NOW    WE    WATCH    THE    MEN    WHO    SHOOT    THE 
FURIOUS    RAPIDS    AT    LACHINE 

WOULD  you  see  the  most  skilful  pilots  in  the 
world,  men  who  know  all  the  tricks  with  ocean 
liners  and  the  Indian  tricks  as  well,  who  fight  the  rush 
of  seventy-foot  tides  in  the  Bay  of  Fundy,  or  drive 
their  frail  canoes  through  furious  gorges,  or  coolly 
turn  the  nose  of  a  thousand-ton  steamboat  into  the 
white  jaws  of  rock-split  rapids  where  a  yard  either 
way  or  a  second's  doubt  would  mean  destruction,  or 
hitch  long  hawsers  to  a  log  raft  big  as  a  city  block  (the 
lumber  in  a  single  raft  may  be  worth  a  hundred  thou- 
sand dollars),  and  swing  her  down  a  tumbling  water- 
way hundreds  of  miles,  with  a  peril  in  every  one,  and 
land  her  safe?  If  you  would  see  all  this,  go  to  the 
wonderful  St.  Lawrence,  which  sweeps  in  wide  and 
troubled  reaches  from  the  Great  Lakes  to  the  sea. 

Of  course  I  do  not  mean  that  any  one  man  can  do 
all  these  things, — that  would  be  asking  too  much, — 
but  each  in  his  own  line,  half-breed  or  Indian  or  fur- 
bundled  voyageur,  has  such  quickness  of  eye,  such 
surety  of  hand,  that  you  will  be  glad  to  watch  the 
rafters  on  their  rafts,  and  ask  no  more  of  them,  or  the 
canoeists  at  their  paddles,  or  the  big-craft  pilots  at 
their  wheels. 

Let  us  stand  on  the  long  iron  bridge  that  spans  the 
St.  Lawrence  just  above  Montreal,  the  very  place  to 

148 


THE   RIVER    PILOT  149 

study  the  river  as  it  narrows  and  runs  swifter  for  its 
smashing  plunge  through  yonder  rapids  to  the  east, 
the  dreaded  Lachine  Rapids,  whose  snarling  teeth  flash 
white  in  the  sun.  Look  down  into  the  greenish  rush, 
and  see  how  the  waters  hurl  past  these  good  stone 
piers,  sharp-pointed  up-stream  against  the  tearing  of 
winter  ice !  Here  goes  the  torrent  of  Niagara  and  the 
inland  ocean  of  Superior  and  Erie  and  Ontario,  all 
crushed  into  a  funnel  of  land  by  this  big  island  at  the 
left  that  blocks  the  flow,  and  gorged  by  the  in-pour  of 
the  Ottawa  a  few  miles  back  that  brings  down  the 
floods  of  southern  Canada.  As  fast  as  a  horse  can  gal- 
lop runs  the  river  here,  and  faster  and  faster  it  goes  as 
the  long  slant  takes  it,  ten,  twelve,  fourteen  miles  an 
hour  (which  is  something  for  a  river),  until  a  dozen 
islands  strewn  across  the  funnel's  lower  end  goad  the 
rapids  to  their  greatest  rage.  Here  is  where  they  kill. 
Then  suddenly  all  is  quiet,  and  the  river,  spreading  to 
a  triple  width,  rests,  after  its  madness,  in  Montreal's 
placid  harbor. 

Standing  here,  I  think  of  my  first  experience  in 
shooting  these  rapids  (it  was  on  one  of  the  large  river 
boats),  and  I  must  confess  that  it  gave  me  no  very 
thrilling  sense  of  danger.  There  were  two  or  three 
plunges,  to  be  sure,  at  the  steepest  part,  and  a  little 
swaying  or  lurching,  but,  so  far  as  movement  goes, 
nothing  to  disturb  one  accustomed  to  the  vicissitudes 
of,  say,  ordinary  trolley-car  navigation.  However, 
when  I  came  to  the  reason  of  this  fairly  smooth  de- 
scent, and  saw  what  it  means  to  stand  at  the  wheel 
through  that  treacherous  channel,  I  found  my  wonder 
growing.  I  thought  of  the  lion-tamer,  whose  skill  is 
shown  not  so  much  by  what  happens  while  he  is  in 
the  cage  as  by  what  does  not  happen.  A  hundred 
ways  there  are  of  doing  the  wrong  thing  with  one  of 


150  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

these  boats,  and  only  a  single  way  of  doing  the  right 
thing.  For  four  miles  the  pilot  must  race  along  a 
squirming,  twisting,  plunging  thread  of  water,  that 
leaps  ahead  like  a  greyhound,  and  changes  its  crooked- 
ness somewhat  from  day  to  day  with  wind  and  tide. 
In  that  thread  alone  is  safety;  elsewhere  is  ruin  and 


"BIG  JOHN"  STEERING  A  BOAT  THROUGH  THE  LACHINE  RAPIDS. 

wreck.  Instantly  he  must  read  the  message  of  a  boil- 
ing eddy  or  the  menace  of  a  beckoning  reef,  and  take 
it  this  way  or  that  instantly,  for  there  are  the  hungry 
rocks  on  either  hand.  He  must  know  things  without 
seeing  them;  must  feel  the  pulse  of  the  rapids,  as  it 
were,  so  that  when  a  mist  clouds  his  view,  or  the 
shine  of  a  low-hung  rainbow  dazzles  him,  he  may  still 
go  right.  It  is  a  fact  that  with  all  the  pilots  in  this 
pilot-land,  and  all  the  hardy  watermen  born  and 
brought  up  on  the  St.  Lawrence,  there  are  not  ten— 
perhaps  not  six — men  in  Canada  to-day,  French  or 
English  or  Indian,  who  would  dare  this  peril.  For  all 


THE   RIVER    PILOT  151 

other  rapids  of  the  route,  the  Gallop  Rapids,  the  Split- 
rock  Rapids,  the  Cascades,  and  the  rest,  there  are 
pilots  in  plenty;  but  not  for  those  of  Lachine.  And, 
to  use  the  same  simile  again,  I  saw  that  the  shooting 
of  these  Lachine  Rapids  is  like  the  taming  of  a  particu- 
larly fierce  lion;  it  is  a  business  by  itself  that  few  men 
care  to  undertake. 

So  it  came  that  I  sought  out  one  of  these  few,  Fred 
Ouillette,  pilot  and  son  of  a  pilot,  an  idol  in  the  com- 
pany's eyes,  a  hero  to  the  boys  of  Montreal,  a  figure 
to  be  stared  at  always  by  anxious  passengers  as  he 
peers  through  the  window  atop  the  forward  deck,  a 
man  whom  people  point  to  as  he  passes :  "There  's  the 
fellow  that  took  us  through  the  rapids.  That  's  Ouil- 
lette." This  unsought  notoriety  has  made  him  shy. 
He  does  not  like  to  talk  about  his  work  or  tell  you 
how  it  feels  to  do  this  thing.  A  dash  of  Indian  blood 
is  in  him,  with  some  of  the  silent,  stoic,  Indian  nature. 
Yet  certain  facts  he  vouchsafed,  when  I  went  to  his 
home,  that  help  one  to  an  understanding  of  the  pilot's 
life. 

He  emphasized  this,  for  instance,  as  essential  in  a 
man  who  would  face  that  fury  of  waters,  he  must  not  be 
afraid.  One  would  say  that  the  rapids  feel  where  the 
mastery  is,  whether  with  them  or  with  the  pilot,  and 
woe  to  him  if  pounding  heart  or  wavering  hand  betray 
him.  The  rapids  will  have  no  mercy.  And  there  are 
pilots,  it  appears,  who  know  the  Lachine  Rapids,  every 
foot  of  them,  and  could  do  Ouillette's  work  perfectly  if 
Ouillette  were  standing  near,  yet  would  fail  utterly  if 
left  alone.  Every  danger  they  can  overcome  but  the 
one  that  lies  in  themselves.  They  cannot  brave  their 
own  fear.  He  cited  the  case  of  a  pilot's  son  who  had 
worked  in  the  Lachine  Rapids  for  years,  helping  his 
father,  and  learned  the  river  as  well  as  a  man  can 


152  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

know  it.  At  the  old  man's  death,  this  son  announced 
that  he  would  take  his  father's  place,  and  shoot  the 
rapids  as  they  always  had  done;  yet  a  season  passed, 
then  a  second  season,  and  always  he  postponed  begin- 
ning, and,  with  one  excuse  or  another,  took  his  boats 
through  the  Lachine  Canal,  a  safe  but  tame  short  cut, 
not  likely  to  draw  tourists. 

"Not  start  heem  right,  that  fadder,"  said  Ouillette. 
"Now  too  late.  Now  nevair  he  can  learn  heem  right." 

"Why,  how  should  he  have  started  him  ?"  I  asked. 

"Same  way  like  my  fadder  sta^t  me."  And  then, 
in  his  jerky  Canadian  speech,  he  explained  how  this 
was. 

Ouillette  went  back  to  his  own  young  manhood,  to 
the  years  when  he,  too,  stood  by  his  father's  side  and 
watched  him  take  the  big  boats  down.  What  a  pic- 
ture he  drew  in  his  queer,  rugged  phrases !  I  could 
see  the  old  pilot  braced  at  the  six-foot  wheel,  with 
three  men  in  oilskins  standing  by  to  help  him  put  her 
over,  Fred  one  of  the  three.  And  it  was  "Hip!" 
"Bas!"  "Hip!"  "Bas!"  ("Up!"  "Down!"  "Up!" 
"Down!")  until  the  increasing  roar  of  the  cataract 
drowned  all  words,  and  then  it  was  a  jerk  of  shoulders 
or  head,  this  way  or  that,  while  the  men  strained  at 
the  spokes.  Never  once  was  the  wheel  at  rest  after 
they  entered  the  rapids,  but  spinning,  spinning  always, 
while  the  boat  shot  like  a  snake  through  black  rocks 
and  churning  chasms. 

They  used  to  take  the  boats — as  Ouillette  takes  them 
still — at  Cornwall,  sixty  miles  up  the  river,  and,  before 
coming  to  Lachine,  they  would  shoot  the  swift  Coteau 
Rapids,  where  many  a  life  has  gone,  then  the  terrify- 
ing Cedar  Rapids,  which  seem  the  most  dangerous 
of  all,  and  finally,  the  Split-rock  Rapids,  which  some 
say  are  the  most  dangerous.  And  each  year,  as  the 


FRED  OUILLETTE,  THE  YOUNG  PILOT. 


154  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

season  opened,  Fred  would  ask  his  father  to  let  him 
take  the  wheel  some  day  when  the  river  was  high  and 
the  rocks  well  covered,  and  the  boat  lightly  laden, 
wishing  thus  to  try  the  easiest  rapids  under  easiest 
conditions.  But  his  father  would  look  at  him  and  say : 
"Do  you  know  the  river,  my  son?  Are  you  sure  you 
know  the  river?"  And  Fred  would  answer:  "Father, 
I  think  I  do."  For  how  could  he  be  sure  until  he 
had  stood  the  test? 

So  it  went  on  from  year  to  year,  and  Ouillette  was 
almost  despairing  of  a  chance  to  show  himself  worthy 
of  his  father's  teaching,  when,  suddenly,  the  chance 
came  in  a  way  never  to  be  forgotten.  It  was  late  in 
the  summer,  and  the  rapids,  being  low,  were  at  their 
very  worst,  since  the  rocks  were  nearer  the  surface. 
Besides  that,  on  this  particular  day  they  were  carrying 
a  heavy  load,  and  the  wind  was  southeast,  blowing 
hard — the  very  wind  to  make  trouble  at  the  bad  places. 
They  had  shot  through  all  the  rapids  but  the  last,  and 
were  well  below  the  Lachine  bridge  when  the  elder 
Ouillette  asked  the  boy,  "My  son,  do  you  know  the 
river?" 

And  Fred  answered  as  usual,  without  any  thought 
of  what  was  coming  next,  "Father,  I  think  I  do." 

They  were  just  at  the  danger-point  now,  and  all  the 
straining  waters  were  sucking  them  down  to  the  first 
plunge. 

"Then  take  her  through,"  said  the  old  man,  stepping 
back;  "there  is  the  wheel." 

"My  fadder  he  make  terreeble  thing  for  me — too 
much  terreeble  thing,"  said  Ouillette,  shaking  his  head 
at  the  memory. 

But  he  took  her  through  somehow,  half  blinded  by 
the  swirl  of  water  and  the  shock.  At  the  wheel  he 
stood,  and  with  a  touch  of  his  father's  hand  now  and 


THE   RIVER   PILOT  155 

then  to  help  him,  he  brought  the  boat  down  safely. 
There  was  a  kind  of  Spartan  philosophy  in  the  old 
man's  action.  His  idea  was  that,  could  he  once  make 
his  son  face  the  worst  of  this  business  and  come  out 
unharmed,  then  never  would  the  boy  know  fear  again, 
for  all  the  rest  would  be  easier  than  what  he  had  al- 
ready done.  And  certainly  his  plan  worked  well,  for 
Fred  Ouillette  has  been  fearless  in  the  rapids  ever  since. 

"Have  you  lost  any  lives?"  I  asked,  reaching  out 
for  thrilling  stories.  * 

"Nevair,"  said  he. 

"Ever  come  near  it?" 

He  looked  at  me  a  moment,  and  then  said  quietly: 
"Always,  sair,  we  come  near  it." 

Then  he  told  of  cases  where  at  the  last  moment  he 
had  seen  some  mad  risk  in  going  down,  and  had  turned 
his  steamer  in  the  very  throat  of  the  torrent,  and,  with 
groaning  wheels  and  straining  timbers,  fought  his  way 
back  foot  by  foot  to  safety.  Once  a  fog  dropped  about 
them  suddenly,  and  once  the  starboard  rudder-chain 
broke.  This  last  was  all  but  a  disaster,  for  they  were 
down  so  far  that  the  river  must  surely  have  conquered 
the  engines  had  they  tried  to  head  up-stream.  Ouil- 
lette saw  there  was  only  one  way  to  save  his  boat  and 
the  lives  she  carried,  and,  putting  the  wheel  hard  aport, 
for  the  port  chain  held,  he  ran  her  on  the  rocks.  And 
there  she  lay,  the  good  steamboat  Spartan,  all  that 
night,  with  passengers  in  an  anguish  of  excitement, 
while  Indian  pilots  from  Caughnawaga  made  it  quite 
clear  what  they  were  good  for — put  off  swiftly  in  their 
little  barks  straight  into  that  reeling  flood,  straight 
out  to  the  helpless  boat,  then  back  to  shore,  each  bear- 
ing two  or  three  of  the  fear-struck  company.  Then 
out  again  and  back  again  until  darkness  came.  Then 
out  again  and  back  again  when  darkness  had  fallen. 


THE  INDIAN   PILOTS   RESCUE   PASSENGERS   FROM   THE   STEAMER  ON   THE   ROCKS. 


THE   RIVER   PILOT 

Think  of  that !  Hour  after  hour,  with  paddles  alone, 
these  dauntless  sons  of  Iroquois  braves  fought  the 
rapids,  triumphed  over  the  rapids,  and  brought  to  land 
through  the  night  and  the  rage  of  waters  every  soul 
on  that  imperiled  vessel ! 

Another  instance  he  gave,  showing  the  admirable 
alertness  of  these  Indians,  as  well  as  their  skill  with  the 
canoe.  It  was  in  the  summer  of  1900,  late  of  an 
afternoon,  and  so  heavy  was  the  August  heat  that  even 
on  the  river  the  passengers  were  gasping  for  air. 
Shortly  after  they  entered  the  cataract  several  persons 
saw  a  large  man  climb  to  the  top  of  a  water-tank  on 
the  hurricane-deck,  and  seat  himself  there  in  one  of  the 
folding  deck-chairs.  The  man's  purpose  was,  evi- 
dently, to  seek  a  cooler  spot  than  he  had  found  below, 
and  the  boat  was  running  so  steadily  that  no  one 
thought  of  danger.  Indeed,  there  would  have  been 
no  danger  had  not  the  gentleman  fallen  into  a  comfort- 
able doze  just  as  Ouillette  steadied  the  boat  for  her  first 
downward  leap  and  then  brought  her  over  to  starboard 
with  a  jerk,  which  jerk  so  effectually  disturbed  the 
large  man's  slumbers  that  the  first  thing  he  knew  he 
was  shot  off  his  rickety  chair,  over  the  side  of  the  water- 
tank,  clean  over  the  steamboat's  decks,  down,  splash ! 
into  the  St.  Lawrence  at  a  point  where  it  is  not  good 
for  any  man  to  be.  He  was  right  in  the  main  sweep 
of  the  river,  where  one  may  live  for  twenty  minutes 
if  he  can  keep  afloat  so  long,  but  scarcely  longer,  since 
twenty  minutes  will  bring  him  to  the  last  rush  of  rap- 
ids, where  swimmers  do  not  live. 

What  happened  after  this  I  have  from  an  eye-wit- 
ness, who  rushed  back  with  others  at  the  cry,  "Man 
overboard!"  and  joined  in  a  reckless  throwing  over  of 
chairs,  boxes,  and  life-preservers  that  profited  little,  for 
the  man  was  left  far  behind  by  the  steamboat,  which 


"MAN  OVERBOARD!"  AN  INDIAN  CANOE  TO  THE  RESCUE. 


THE  RIVER  PILOT  159 

could  do  nothing — and  Ouillette  could  do  nothing — but 
whistle  a  hoarse  danger-warning  and  go  its  way.  A 
magnificent  swimmer  he  must  have  been,  this  rudely 
awakened  tourist,  for  the  passengers,  crowded  astern, 
could  follow  the  black  speck  that  was  his  head  bobbing 
along  steadily,  undisturbed,  one  would  say,  by  dan- 
gers, apparently  going  up-stream  as  the  steamboat 
gained  on  him — really  coming  down-stream  with  the 
full  force  of  the  current,  and  yielding  to  it  entirely,  all 
strength  saved  for  steering.  Not  a  man  on  the  boat 
believed  that  the  swimmer  would  come  out  alive,  and, 
helpless  to  save,  they  stood  there  in  sickening  fascina- 
tion, watching  him  sweep  down  to  his  death. 

Then  suddenly  rang  out  a  cry :  "Look !  There !  A 
canoe!"  And  out  from  the  shadows  and  shallows  off- 
shore shot  a  slender  prow  with  a  figure  in  bow  and 
stern.  The  Indians  were  coming  to  the  rescue !  They 
must  have  started  even  as  the  man  fell, — such  a  thing 
it  is  to  be  an  Indian ! — and,  with  a  knowledge  of  the 
rapids  that  is  theirs  alone,  they  had  aimed  the  swift 
craft  in  a  long  slant  that  would  let  them  overtake  the 
swimmer  just  here,  at  this  very  place  where  now  they 
were  about  to  overtake  him,  at  this  very  place  where 
presently  they  did  overtake  him  and  draw  him  up,  all 
but  exhausted,  from  as  close  to  the  brink  of  the  Great 
Rapids  as  ever  he  will  get  until  he  passes  over  them. 
Then  they  paddled  back. 


IV 


WHAT    CANADIAN    PILOTS    DID    IN    THE    CATA- 
RACTS   OF    THE    NILE 

A  ND  now  suppose  we  follow  these  Indians  to  their 
£\.  reservation  at  Caughnawaga,  where  the  govern- 
ment has  given  them  land  and  civic  rights  and  encour- 
agement to  peaceful  ways.  The  surest  time  of  year 
to  find  the  pilots  at  home  is  the  winter  season;  for 
then,  with  navigation  frozen  up,  they  have  weeks  to 
spend  drifting  along  in  the  sleepy  village  life,  waiting 
for  the  spring.  There,  in  many  a  hearth-fire  circle, — 
only,  alas !  the  hearth  is  a  commonplace  shiny  stove 
more  often  than  not, — we  may  listen  to  tales  without 
end  of  rapids  and  river,  while  the  men  smoke  solemnly, 
and  the  women  do  beadwork  and  moccasins  for  the 
next  year's  peddling.  We  may  hear  "Big  Baptiste" 
tell  for  what  exploits  of  the  paddle  his  head  came  to 
be  on  the  ten-dollar  bills  of  Canada,  set  in  dignity  and 
feathers;  and  hear  "Big  John,"  famous  for  years  as 
a  steamboat  pilot,  describe  his  annual  shooting  of  the 
Lachine  Rapids  at  the  opening  of  navigation,  when, 
first  of  all  the  pilots,  he  goes  down  in  his  canoe, — this 
is  a  time-honored  custom, — so  that  the  others  may  be 
sure  that  it  is  safe  to  follow. 

He  will  give  us  the  story,  too,  amid  nods  of  appro- 
val, of  shooting  these  same  rapids  for  a  wager  on  a 
certain  New  Year's  Day,  and  coming  down  safely,  ice 
and  all.  There,  sir,  is  the  paddle  he  used,  if  you  doubt 
the  tale,  and  the  canoe  lies  out  in  the  snow. 

160 


THE  RIVER  PILOT  161 

And  be  sure  we  shall  not  have  been  long  in  Caugh- 
nawaga  without  hearing  of  the  proud  part  these  In- 
dians took  in  the  British  expedition  up  the  Nile  in 
1884  to  relieve  Khartum.  Treasured  in  more  than 
one  household  are  these  words  of  Lord  Wolseley,  writ- 
ten to  the  governor-general  of  Canada :  "I  desire  to 
place  on  record  not  only  my  own  opinion,  but  that  of 
every  officer  connected  with  the  management  of  the 
boat  columns,  that  the  services  of  these  voyageurs  has 
been  of  the  greatest  possible  value.  .  .  .  They 
have  on  many  occasions  shown  not  only  great  skill  but 
also  great  courage  in  navigating  their  boats  through 
difficult  and  dangerous  waters." 

"How  many  men  did  Caughnawaga  send  on  this 
expedition?"  I  inquired. 

"Fifty-five  men  besides  Louis  Jackson,"  said  one  of 
the  Indians. 

"Oh,"  said  I;  "and — and  who  is  Louis  Jackson?" 

The  Indian's  face  showed  plain  disgust  that  there 
should  be  any  one  who  did  not  know  all  about  Louis 
Jackson. 

"Louis  Jackson  was  the  leader.  He  is  our  chief 
man.  He  lives  over  there." 

It  resulted  in  my  calling  on  Mr.  Jackson,  a  big,  pow- 
erful man,  fully  meriting,  I  should  say,  the  high  opin- 
ion in  which  he  is  held.  If  there  is  any  Indian  strain 
in  him  it  must  be  very  slight;  he  would  pass,  rather, 
for  an  uncommonly  energetic  Englishman,  with  such  a 
fund  of  adventure  to  his  credit,  and  so  entertaining 
a  way  of  drawing  upon  it,  that  one  would  listen  for 
hours  while  he  talks. 

Jackson  made  clear  to  me  what  important  duty  was 
given  the  Canadian  voyageurs  in  this  Nile  campaign. 
By  their  success  or  failure  in  taking  heavy-laden  boats 
up  the  cataracts  Lord  Wolseley  proposed  to  decide 


162  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 


whether  the  troops  for  Gordon's  relief  should  go 
straight  up  the  Nile  or  around  by  the  Red  Sea  and 
the  desert.  It  was  the  river  if  they  succeeded;  it 
was  the  desert  if  they  failed :  and  twenty  thousand 

soldiers  waited  at 
Alexandria  in  a 
fever  of  impa- 
tience while  Jack- 
son and  his  band, 
with  some  hun- 
dreds of  voya- 
geurs  from  other 
provinces,  let  it  be 
seen  if  their  train- 
ing on  the  St. 
Lawrence  would 
serve  against  river 
perils  in  ancient 
Egypt.  LordWol- 
seley  was  confi- 
dent it  would,  for 
during  the  Riel 
rebellion  he  had 
found  out  what 
stuff  was  in  these 
men.  Still  he 
dared  not  start  his 
army  until  it  was  certain  those  formidable  cataracts 
could  be  surmounted.  And  that  meant  a  month,  let 
the  men  strain  as  they  might  at  paddles  and  haul- 
ing-lines — a  month  to  wait,  a  month  for  Gordon  to 
wait. 

"Oh,"  said  Jackson,  gloomily,  "if  Lord  Wolseley 
had  only  trusted  us  without  any  trial !  Why,  there 
was  nothing,  sir,  in  that  Nile  River  we  had  n't  tackled 


THE   PILOT,    "BIG  JOHN." 


THE  RIVER  PILOT  163 

a  hundred  times  as  boys  right  here  in  the  St.  Law- 
rence. When  you  talk  of  cataracts  it  sounds  big,  but 
we  've  got  rapids  all  around  here,  just  plain  every-day 
rapids,  that  will  make  their  cataracts  look  sick.  Of 
course  we  did  it — did  it  easy ;  but  when  we  got  up  to 
the  top  of  the  whole  business,  where  was  our  army? 
Back  in  Alexandria,  sir!  And  it  makes  a  man  sad  to 
know  that  those  boys  in  Khartum  were  dying  just 
then;  it  makes  a  man  mighty  sad  to  know  that!" 

One  sees  what  ground  there  may  be  for  such  lament 
on  turning  up  the  dates  of  this  unhappy  Nile  expedi- 
tion, and  the  heart  aches  at  the  sight  of  those  dumb 
figures.  Think  of  it !  the  relief-party  reached  Khar- 
tum about  February  i,  1885 — too  late  by  less  than  a 
week.  Khartum  had  fallen;  Khartum,  sore-stricken, 
lay  in  fresh-smoking  ruins.  And  when  at  last  British 
gunboats,  firing  as  they  came,  steamed  into  view  of 
the  tortured  city  that  had  hoped  for  them  so  long, 
there  was  no  General  Gordon  within  walls  to  thrill 
with  joy.  General  Gordon  was  dead,  cut  down  ruth- 
lessly by  the  Arabs  a  fezv  days  before — killed  on  Jan- 
uary 27,  with  his  countrymen  so  near,  so  short  a  dis- 
tance down  the  river,  that  their  camp  might  almost 
have  been  made  out  with  field-glasses.  What  a  dif- 
ference here  a  little  more  hurrying  would  have  made, 
a  very  little  more  hurrying ! 

It  would  be  interesting  indeed  if  we  might  hear  the 
whole  story  of  these  months  spent  in  fighting  a  river, 
in  battling  with  cataract  after  cataract,  in  rowing  and 
steering  and  sailing  and  hauling  a  fleet  of  boats  and 
supplies  for  an  army  up,  up,  up  into  unknown  rapids, 
through  a  burning  desert,  such  a  long,  long  way.  It 
would  be  an  inspiration  could  we  know  in  detail  what 
these  pilots  did  and  suffered,  what  perils  they  defied, 
and  how  some  of  them  perished — in  short,  what  prob- 


1 64  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

lems  of  the  river  they  went  at  and  how  they  fared  in 
solving  them.  That  would  make  a  book  by  itself. 

A  few  things  we  may  know,  ho\vever.  This,  for 
instance :  that,  while  the  maps  put  down  six  cataracts 
in  the  Nile  between  Cairo  and  Khartum,  say  fifteen 
hundred  miles,  there  are,  in  truth,  many  more  than  six. 
Between  the  second  and  third  alone  there  are  more 
than  six,  and  some  of  them  bad.  Also  that  the  river 
beyond  the  third  cataract  curves  away  in  a  great  ram- 
bling S,  so  that  Lord  Wolseley  planned  to  send  an 
expedition,  as  he  actually  did,  straight  on  from  that 
point  by  a  short  cut  across  the  desert.  The  important 
thing  then,  and  the  difficult  thing,  was  to  reach  the 
third  cataract,  and  upon  this  all  the  skill  of  the  voya- 
geurs  was  concentrated. 

The  first  cataract,  about  five  hundred  miles  above 
Cairo,  is  fairly  easy  of  ascent ;  the  second  cataract, 
some  two  hundred  and  fifty  miles  farther  on,  is  per- 
haps the  most  dangerous  of  all,  and  resembles  its  rival 
at  Lachine  in  this,  that  the  Nile  here  strains  through 
myriad  foam-lashed  islands  strewn  in  the  channel  for 
a  length  of  seven  miles,  like  teeth  of  a  crooked  comb. 
A  balloonist  hovering  here  would  see  the  river  stream- 
ing through  these  islands  in  countless  channels  that 
wind  and  twist  in  a  maze  of  silver  threads.  But  to 
lads  in  the  boats  these  silver  threads  were  so  many 
plunging  foes,  torrents  behind  torrents,  sweeping  down 
roaring  streets  of  rock,  boiling  through  jagged  lanes 
of  rock;  and  up  that  seven-mile  way  the  pilots  had  to 
go  and  keep  their  craft  afloat. 

Jackson  described  the  boats  used  in  this  hazardous 
undertaking.  There  were,  first,  the  ordinary  whale- 
boats,  about  twenty-five  feet  long  and  five  feet  high, 
with  a  crew  of  ten  Dongolese  at  the  oars,  and  twro  or 
three  sails  to  catch  the  helpful  northerly  winds.  Over- 


1 66  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

head  was  an  awning  stretched  against  the  scorching 
sun,  and  around  the  sides  were  boxes  and  bags  of  pro- 
visions and  ammunition, — five  or  six  tons  to  a  boat, — 
piled  high  for  shelter  against  bullets,  for  no  one  could 
tell  when  a  band  of  Arabs,  lurking  at  some  vantage- 
point,  might  fall  to  picking  off  the  men.  At  a  cata- 
ract the  crew  would  go  ashore,  save  two,  a  voyageur 
in  the  stern  to  steer  and  another  in  the  bow  to  fend 
off  rocks,  or,  in  case  of  need,  give  one  swift,  severing 
hatchet-stroke  on  the  hauling-rope.  For,  of  course, 
the  ascending  power  came  from  a  line  of  Dongolese, 
black  fellows,  with  backs  and  muscles  to  delight  a 
prize-fighter,  who,  by  sheer  strength  of  body,  would 
drag  the  boat,  cargo  and  all  (or  sometimes  lightened 
of  her  cargo  by  the  land-carriers),  up,  up,  with  grunt- 
ing and  heaving,  against  the  down-rush  of  the  river. 

And  woe  to  the  boat  if  her  hatchet-man  fails  to  cut 
the  rope  at  the  very  second  of  danger!  So  long  as 
the  craft  can  live  his  arm  must  stay  uplifted ;  yet  he 
must  cut  instantly  when  it  is  plain  she  can  live  no 
longer.  And  here  one  marvels ;  for  how  can  any- 
thing be  plain  in  a  blinding,  deafening  cataract  ?  And 
how  shall  the  man  decide,  as  they  rise  on  a  glassy 
sweep  and  hang  for  an  instant  over  some  rock-gulf 
beaten  into  by  tons  of  water,  whether  they  can  go 
through  it  or  not?  Truly  this  is  no  place  for  waver- 
ing nerve  or  halting  judgment.  The  man  must  know 
and  act,  know  and  act,  because  he  is  that  kind  of  a 
man;  and,  even  so,  in  hard  places  above  the  second 
cataract  two  Indians  from  Caughnawaga,  Morris  and 
Capitan,  fine  pilots  both,  held  back  their  blades  too 
long,  or,  striking  as  the  boat  plunged,  missed  the  rope, 
and  paid  for  the  error  with  their  lives. 

And  even  with  hauling-line  cut  in  time,  the  pilots 
have  only  changed  from  peril  to  peril,  for  now  they 


CUTTING  THE   LINE  — A   MOMENT   OF   PERIL. 


1 68  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

are  adrift  in  the  cataract,  and  must  shoot  down  un- 
known rapids,  chancing  everything,  swinging  into 
shore  as  soon  as  may  be  with  the  help  of  paddle  and 
sail.  Then  is  all  to  be  done  over  again — the  line 
made  fast,  the  black  men  harnessed  on,  and  the  risk 
of  a  new  channel  encountered  vas  before.  Thus  days 
or  weeks  would  pass  in  getting  the  whale-boats  up  a 
single  cataract. 

And  sometimes  they  would  face  the  still  more  for- 
midable task  of  dragging  a  whole  steamboat  up  the 
rapids,  with  troops  aboard  and  stores  to  last  for  weeks. 
Then  how  the  hauling-men  would  swarm  at  the  lines, 
and  shout  queer  African  words,  and  strain  at  the  ropes, 
when  the  order  came,  until  knees  and  shoulders  scraped 
the  ground!  This  was  no  problem  for  untutored 
minds,  but  took  the  best  wits  of  Royal  Engineers  and 
gentlemen  from  the  schools,  who  knew  the  ways  of 
hitching  tackle  to  things  so  as  to  make  pulley-blocks 
work  miracles.  At  least,  it  seemed  a  miracle  the  day 
they  started  the  big  side-wheeler  Nassif-Kheir  up  the 
second  cataract  with  five  hawsers  on  her,  three  spread- 
ing from  her  bow  and  two  checking  her  swing  on 
either  quarter,  and  her  own  steam  helping  her. 

There  stood  five  hundred  Dongolese  ready  to  haul, 
and  there  was  the  whole  floating  population — pilots, 
soldiers,  and  camp-followers — gathered  on  the  banks 
to  wonder  and  to  criticize  the  job  which  nobody  un- 
derstood but  half  a  dozen  straight  little  men  in  white 
helmets,  who  stood  about  on  rocks  and  snapped  things 
out  in  English  that  were  straightway  yelled  down 
the  lines  in  vigorous  Dongolese.  It  was  Trigonom- 
etry speaking,  and  the  law  of  component  forces,  and 
"Confound  those  niggers!  Tell  'em  to  slack  away  on 
that  starboard  hawser.  Tell  'em  to  slack  away!" 

It  was  respectfully  presented  to  Mathematics,  Esq., 


"OVER  THEY   WENT,    THE  WHOLE   BLACK   LINE   OF  THEM." 


1 70  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 


HOW   THE    ENGINEERS    WERE    CARRIED    OVER    TO   THE   NILE   ISLANDS. 


that  the  "niggers"  in  question  could  n't  slack  away 
any  more  without  letting  the  hawser  go  or  tumbling 
into  the  rapids,  for  they  were  on  one  of  the  little 
islands,  on  the  brink  of  it,  holding  the  steamer  back 
while  the  land-lines  hauled  against  them. 

"Then  in  they  go,"  ordered  Trigonometry.  "Tell 
'em  to  get  over  to  that  next  island.  Tell  'em  to  get 
over  quick!" 

And  over  they  went,  the  whole  black  line  of  them, 
right  through  the  rapids,  swimming  and  struggling  in 
the  buffeting  surge,  getting  across  somehow,  hawser 
and  all,  where  white  men  must  have  perished.  And 
the  steamboat  had  gained  a  hundred  feet. 

Then  one  of  the  front  lines  of  haulers  in  turn  had  to 
move  forward  to  an  island,  to  swim  for  it  with  six 


THE  RIVER  PILOT  171 

hundred  feet  of  hawser  slapping  the  river  as  they 
dragged  it.  What  a  picture  here  as  these  naked  men 
leaped  in,  fearless,  each  with  a  flashing  bayonet  thrust 
in  his  thick  white  turban!  Mathematics,  Esq.,  had  no 
notion  of  trying  this  sort  of  thing  when  he  changed 
islands,  vastly  preferring  his  pulley-blocks,  and  would 
presently  be  hauled  across  on  a  rope  trolley,  as  pas- 
sengers are  swung  ashore  from  wrecks  by  the  life- 
saving  men.  That  made  a  picture,  too ! 

Thus,  slowly  and  with  infinite  pains,  they  worked 
the  patient  steamboat,  length  by  length,  island  by 
island,  torrent  by  torrent,  up  through  the  Great  Gate 
(Bab-el-Kebir),  up  to  the  very  head  waters  of  the 
second  cataract ;  and  there,  with  victory  in  their  grasp, 
saw  the  forward  hawser  snap  suddenly  with  the  noise 
of  a  gun,  and  the  old  side-wheeler  swing  out  helpless 
into  the  main  rush  of  the  river,  swing  clean  around  as 
the  side-lines  held,  and  then  start  down.  Whereupon 
it  was:  "Cut  hawsers,  everybody!"  and  drop  these 
pulley-blocks  and  tackle-fixings,  useless  now,  and  let 
her  go,  let  her  go,  since  there  is  no  stopping  her,  and 
Heaven  help  the  boys  on  board !  Then,  aniid  shouts  of 
dismay,  the  big  boat  Nassif-Kheir  plunged*forward  to 
her  destruction,  while  the  mathematical  gentlemen 
stared  in  horror — then  stared  in  amazement.  For 
look !  She  keeps  to  the  channel !  She  is  running  true ! 
Wonder  of  wonders,  she  is  shooting  the  rapids,  shoot- 
ing the  greatest  cataract  of  the  Nile,  where  boat  of  her 
tonnage  never  passed  before ! 

The  Nassif-Kheir  was  saved,  and  every  man  aboard 
her,  and  every  box  of  stores.  She  was  saved  by 
an  humble  Canadian  pilot,  who  had  never  studied 
trigonometry,  but  who  stepped  to  the  wheel  when  he 
saw  the  peril,  and  steered  her  down  those  furious 
rapids  as  he  had  steered  other  boats  down  other  rapids 


172  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

on  the  old  St.  Lawrence.  And  after  that,  when  the 
expedition  found  itself  in  trouble  in  the  upper  cata- 
racts, say  those  of  Tangoor  or  Akashe  or  Ambigole 
or  Dal,  and  when  the  Royal  Engineers  had  drawn  up 
some  neat  plan  with  compasses  and  squares  for  doing 
a  certain  thing  with  a  boat,  and  had  proved  by  the 
books  that  it  could  be  done,  and  agreed  that  it  should 
be  done  forthwith,  then  some  one  would  usually  say, 
just  at  the  last,  as  by  an  afterthought: 

"I  suppose  wre  might  as  well  have  in  one  of  those 
voyageur  chaps,  just  to  see  what  he  thinks  of  it!" 

And  they  usually  had  him  in. 


THE   BRIDGE-BUILDER 

i 

IN    WHICH    WE    VISIT    A    PLACE    OF    UNUSUAL 
FEARS    AND    PERILS 

AST  went  time  and  again  to  the  great  East  River 
£]L  Bridge,  the  new  one  whose  huge  steel  towers 
were  drawing  to  full  height  in  the  last  months  of  the 
century,  I  found  myself  under  a  growing  impression 
that  here  at  last  was  a  business  with  not  only  danger 
in  it,  but  fear  of  danger.  Divers  and  steeple-climbers 
I  had  seen  who  pronounced  their  work  perfectly  safe 
(though  I  knew  better),  and  balloonists  of  the  same 
mind  about  perils  of  the  air;  there  were  none,  they 
declared,  despite  a  list  of  deaths  to  prove  the  con- 
trary. And  so  on  with  others.  But  here  on  the 
bridge  were  men  who  showed  by  little  things,  and 
sometimes  admitted,  that  they  were  afraid  of  the 
black-ribbed  monster.  And  it  seemed  to  me  that  these 
were  men  with  the  best  kind  of  grit  in  them,  for  al- 
though they  were  afraid  of  the  bridge,  they  were  not 
afraid  of  their  fear,  and  they  stuck  to  their  job  week 
after  week,  month  after  month,  facing  the  same  old 
peril  until — well— 

I  came  upon  this  fear  of  the  bridge  the  very  first  time 
I  sought  leave  to  go  upon  the  unfinished  structure.  It 
was  in  a  little  shanty  of  an  office  on  the  Brooklyn  side, 
where,  after  some  talk,  I  suggested  to  an  assistant  en- 
gineer, bent  over  his  plans,  that  I  would  like  to  take 

173 


,174  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

a  picture  or  two  from  the  top  of  the  tower.  That 
seemed  a  simple  enough  thing. 

"Think  you  can  keep  your  head  up  there?"  said  he, 
with  a  sharp  look. 

I  told  him  I  had  climbed  to  a  steeple- top. 

"Yes.  But  you  were  lashed  fast  then  in  a  swing, 
and  had  a  rope  to  hold  on  to.  Here  you  've  got  to 
climb  up  by  yourself  without  anything  to  hold  on  to, 
and  it  's  twice  as  high  as  the  average  steeple." 

"How  high  is  that?"  I  asked. 

"Well,  the  saddles  are  three  hundred  and  forty  feet 
above  the  river." 

"Saddles?" 

"That  's  what  we  call  'em.  They  're  beds  of  steel 
on  top  of  the  towers  for  the  cables  to  rest  on — nice 
little  beds  weighing  thirty-six  tons  each." 

"Oh!"  said  I.     "How  do  you  get  them  up?" 

"Swing  'em  up  with  steam-derricks  and  cables. 
Guess  you  would  n't  care  for  that  job,  hanging  out  on 
one  o'  those  booms  by  your  eyelashes." 

"Perhaps  not,"  I  admitted.  "But  I  'd  like  to 
watch  it." 

He  said  I  must  see  somebody  with  more  authority, 
and  turned  to  his  plans. 

"You  don't  feel  in  danger  yourself,  do  you,"  I  per- 
sisted, "when  you  go  up?" 

"Don't,  eh?"  he  answered.  "Well,  I  nearly  got 
cut  in  two  the  other  day  by  a  plate-washer.  It  fell 
over  a  hundred  feet,  and  went  two  inches  slam  into  a 
piece  of  timber  I  was  standing  on."  Then  he  ex- 
plained what  havoc  a  small  piece  of  iron — some  stray 
bolt  or  hammer — can  work  after  a  long  drop. 

"That  plate-washer,"  said  he,  "weighed  only  two 
pounds  and  a  half  when  it  began  to  fall ;  but  it  weighed 
as  much  as  you  do  when  it  struck — and  you  're  a  fair 
size." 


THE    WORK   OF   THE    BRIDGE-BUILDERS.       A  TOWER    OF   THE   NEW   EAST    RIVER 

BRIDGE.       THIS    PHOTOGRAPH    ALSO    ILLUSTRATES    THE    NARROW   ESCAPE 

OF  JACK   MCGREGGOR   ON  THE   SWINGING  COLUMN.       (SEE   PAGE    192.) 


CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

"Is  that  based  on  calculation,"  said  I,  "or  is  it  a 
joke?" 

"It  's  based  on  the  laws  of  gravitation,"  he  an- 
swered, "and  it  's  no  joke  for  the  man  who  gets  hit. 
Say,  why  don't  you  go  down  in  the  yard  and  look 
around  a  little?" 

I  told  him  I  would,  and  presently  went  down  into 
the  yard,  a  noisy,  confusing  place,  where  the  wind  was 
humming  through  a  forest  of  scaffolding  that  held 
the  bare  black  roadway  skeleton  a  hundred  feet  over- 
head. It  was  a  long  street  of  iron  resting  on  a  long 
street  of  wood,  with  timber  and  steel  built  up  in  X's 
on  X's,  the  whole  rising  in  an  easy  slant  to  yonder 
grim  tower  that  loomed  heavy  and  ugly  against  the 
sky,  a  huge  bow-legged  H  with  the  upper  half 
stretched  to  a  great  length,  and  each  leg  piled  up  with 
more  black  X's  held  by  twro  enormous  ones  between. 
It  looked  for  all  the  world  as  if  it  had  come  ready  made 
in  a  box  and  had  been  jointed  together  like  children's 
blocks,  which  is  about  the  truth,  for  this  great  bridge 
was  finished  on  paper,  then  in  all  its  parts,  before  ever 
a  beam  of  it  saw  the  East  River.  As  I  drew  near  its 
feet  (which  could  take  a  row  of  houses  between  heel 
and  toe)  I  had  the  illusion,  due  to  bigness  and  height, 
that  the  whole  tower  was  rocking  toward  me  under 
the  hurrying  clouds;  and  at  first  I  did  not  see  the 
workmen  swarming  over  it,  they  were  so  tiny. 

But  they  were  making  noise  enough,  these  work- 
men, with  their  striking  and  hoisting  and  shouting. 
There  was  the  ring  of  hammers,  the  chunk-chunk  of 
engines,  the  hiss  of  steam,  the  mellow  sound  of  planks 
falling  on  planks,  and  the  angry  clash  of  metal.  Pres- 
ently, far  up  the  sides  of  the  tower,  I  made  out  paint- 
ers dangling  on  scaffolding  or  crawling  out  on  girders, 
busy  with  scrapers  and  brushes.  And  higher  still  I 


THE   BRIDGE-BUILDER  177 

saw  the  glow  of  red-hot  iron,  where  the  riveters  were 
working.  And  at  the  very  top  I  watched  black  dots 
of  men  swing  out  over  the  gulf  on  the  monster  derrick- 
booms,  or  haul  on  the  guiding-lines.  And  from  time 
to  time  the  signal-bell  would  send  its  impatient  call 
to  the  throttle-man  below,  six  strokes,  four  strokes, 
one  stroke,  telling  him  what  to  do  with  his  engine,  and 
to  do  it  quick. 

The  yardmen  seemed  to  get  on  in  the  din  by  a 
system  of  strange  yells.  Here  were  a  score  of  sturdy 
fellows  doing  something  with  a  long  steel  floor-beam. 
They  were  working  in  scattered  groups,  some  on  the 
ground,  some  on  the  roadway  overhead.  It  was  lower 
pulley-blocks,  and  spread  out  flapping  cables,  and  hitch 
fast  the  load,  all  without  any  hurry.  Suddenly  a 
man  at  the  left  would  put  a  hand  to  his  mouth  and  sing 
out:  "Hey-y-y!"  and  a  man  overhead  would  answer: 
"Yeow-yeow-yeow !"  and  then  they  all  would  cry: 
"Ho-hoo-ho-hoooo !"  and  up  would  go  the  floor-beam, 
twisting  as  she  lifted,  a  nice  little  load  of  ten  tons,  and 
presently  clang  down  on  her  lofty  bed  like  a  peal  of 
high-pitched  thunder. 

I  chanced  to  be  talking  with  the  yard  foreman  when 
there  came  such  a  sudden  clang,  and  then  I  saw  an 
easy-going,  rather  stolid  man  pass  through  a  singular 
transformation.  Like  a  piece  of  bent  steel  he  sprang 
back,  every  muscle  in  him  tense,  and  up  came  his  arms 
for  defense,  and  there  in  his  eyes  was  the  look  I  came 
to  know  that  meant  terror  of  the  bridge,  and  fear  of 
sudden  death.  To  me,  unfamiliar  with  the  constant 
danger,  that  clang  meant  nothing;  to  him  it  was  like 
a  snarl  of  the  grave. 

"Better  stand  back  here,"  said  he,  and  led  me  over 
by  the  air-compressing  engine,  where  we  were  out  of 
range. 

12 


i;8  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

Then  he  told  how  a  superintendent  of  construc- 
tion had  been  nearly  killed  not  long  before  by  a  piece 
of  falling  iron,  just  where  we  were  standing.  And 
looking  up  through  the  criss-cross  maze,  with  openings 
everywhere  from  ground  to  sky,  with  workmen  every- 
where handling  loose  iron,  I  realized  that  this  was  a 
kind  of  slow-fire  battle-field,  not  so  very  glorious,  but 
deadly  enough,  with  shots  coming  from  sky  to  earth 
every  ten  minutes,  every  half -hour — who  can  know  at 
what  moment  the  man  above  him  will  drop  something, 
or  at  what  moment  he  himself  will  drop  something  on 
the  man  below!  A  tiered-up  battle-field,  this,  where 
each  black  X,  with  its  hammers  and  bolts  and  busy 
gang,  is  a  haphazard  battery  against  all  the  X's  below, 
and  a  helpless  target  under  all  the  X's  above. 

"Why,  sir,"  said  the  foreman,  "that  tower  went  into 
a  reg'lar  panic  one  day  because  some  fool  new  man  on 
top  upset  a  keg  o'  bolts.  Sounded  as  if  the  whole 
business  was  coming  down  on  us." 

I  began  to  realize  what  tension  these  men  work 
under,  what  vital  force  they  waste  in  vague  alarms ! 

"It  's  queer,  though,"  continued  the  foreman,  "how 
the  boys  get  used  to  it.  See  those  timbers  right  at 
the  top  that  come  together  in  a  point?  We  call  that 
an  A-frame;  it  's  for  the  hoisting.  Well,  the  boys 
walk  those  cross-timbers  all  the  time,  say  a  length  of 
thirty  feet  and  a  width  of  one.  It  's  nothing  on  the 
ground,  but  up  there  with  the  wind  blowing — well, 
you  try  it.  I  saw  one  fellow  do  a  thing  that  knocked 
me.  He  stopped  half-way  across  a  timber  not  over 
eight  inches  wide,  took  out  his  match-box,  stood  on 
his  right  foot,  lifted  his  left  foot,  and  struck  a  match 
on  his  left  heel.  Then  he  nursed  the  flame  in  his 
hands,  got  his  pipe  going  good,  and  walked  on  across 
the  timber.  Wha'  d'  ye  think  of  that?  There  he  was, 


"'THERE  WAS  PAT,  FAST  ASLEEP,  LEGS  DANGLING,  HEAD  NODDING, 
AS  COMFORTABLE  AS  YOU  PLEASE.'  " 


i8o  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

balanced  on  one  foot,  sir,  with  an  awful  death  on 
either  side,  and  the  wind  just  whooping — all  because 
his  pipe  went  out.  I  would  n't  do  it  for — for —  Well, 
I  would  n't  do  it." 

"Why  did  n't  he  wait  to  light  his  pipe  until  he  got 
across?"  I  asked. 

The  foreman  shook  his  head.  "I  give  it  up.  He 
just  happened  to  think  of  it  then,  and  he  done  it. 
That  's  the  way  they  are,  some  of  'em.  Why,  there 
was  another  fellow,  Pat  Reagan,  as  good  a  man  as 
we  've  got,  and  he  went  sound  asleep  one  day  last 
summer, — it  was  a  nice  warm  day, — sitting  on  the 
top-chord.  That  's  a  long,  narrow  girder  at  the  very 
highest  point  of  the  end-span.  First  thing  we  knew, 
there  was  Pat,  legs  dangling,  head  nodding,  comfort- 
able as  you  please.  A  few  inches  either  way  would 
have  fixed  him  forever ;  but  he  stuck  there,  by  an  Irish- 
man's luck,  until  two  of  his  mates  climbed  up  softly 
and  grabbed  him.  They  did  n't  dare  yell  for  fear  he  'd 
be  startled  and  fall." 

While  we  were  talking  the  wind  had  strengthened, 
and  now  every  line  and  rope  on  the  structure  stood  out 
straight  from  the  sides,  and  swirls  of  spray  from  hoist- 
ing engines  overhead  flew  across  the  yard,  also  occa- 
sional splinters.  The  foreman  hurried  a  man  aloft 
with  orders  to  lash  fast  everything. 

"There  's  a  hard  blow  coming  up,"  he  predicted, 
"and  it  'would  n't  do  a  thing'  to  those  big  timbers  on 
the  tower  if  we  left  'em  around  loose!  People  have 
no  idea  what  force  is  in  the  wind.  Why,  sir,  I  've 
seen  it  blow  a  keg  of  railroad  spikes  off  that  tower 
clean  across  the  yard.  And  one  day  two  planks  thir- 
teen feet  long  and  two  inches  thick  went  flying  over 
the  whole  approach-works  right  plumb  through  the 
front  of  a  saloon  out  on  the  street.  That  made  eight 
hundred  feet  the  wind  carried  those  planks.  As  for 


THE   BRIDGE-BUILDER  181 

coats  and  overalls,  why,  we  Ve  watched  lots  of  'em 
start  from  the  tower-top  and  sail  off  over  Brooklyn  city 
like  kites — yes,  sir,  like  kites;  and  nobody  ever  knew 
where  they  landed." 

"I  don't  see  how  the  men  keep  their  footing  in  such 
a  gale,"  I  remarked. 

"Well,"  said  he,  "we  order  them  down  when  it 
blows  an  out-and-out  gale,  but  they  work  in  'most  any- 
thing short  of  a  gale.  And  it  's  a  wonder  how  they 
do  it.  It  's  not  so  bad  if  the  wind  is  steady,  for  then 
you  can  lean  against  it,  same  as  a  man  leans  on  a 
bicycle  going  around  a  curve ;  but— 

"Do  you  mean,"  I  interrupted,  "that  they  walk  nar- 
row  girders  leaning  against  the  wind — against  a  hard 
wind?" 

"Certainly ;  they  have  to.  But  that  's  not  the  worst 
of  it.  Suppose  a  man  is  leaning  just  enough  to  bal- 
ance the  wind,  and  suddenly  the  wind  lets  up,  say  on  a 
gusty  day.  Then  where  's  your  man?  Or  suppose 
it  's  winter  and  the  whole  bridge  is  coated  with  ice,  so 
that  walking  girders  is  like  sliding  on  glass.  Then 
where  is  he,  especially  when  it  's  blowing  tricky  blasts? 
Oh,  it  's  no  dream,  my  friend,  working  on  a  bridge!" 

And  I,  in  hearty  accord  with  that  opinion,  betook 
me  back  to  the  office,  where  I  read  just  outside  the 
door  this  ominous  notice:  "All  accidents  must  be  re- 
ported as  soon  as  possible,  or  claims  therefor  will  be 
disregarded." 

A  workman  came  up  at  this  moment,  and,  with  a 
half-smile,  asked  if  I  knew  their  motto,  the  motto  of 
the  bridge-men. 

"No,"  said  I;  "what  is  it?" 

"  'We  never  die,'  "  said  he,  with  a  grim  glance  at 
the  notice;  "we  don't  have  to."  Then,  pointing  over- 
head: "Come  up  and  see  us.  I  '11  introduce  you  to 
the  boys." 


II 


THE    EXPERIENCE    OF    TWO    NOVICES    IN    BALANCING 

ALONG    NARROW    GIRDERS    AND    WATCHING 

THE    "  TRAVELER  "    GANG 

NOT  that  day,  but  later  on,  wnen  I  had  arranged 
it,  I  accepted  this  bluff  invitation  and  became  ac- 
quainted with  "the  boys,"  the  ones  who  "never  die," 
and  took  in  the  fears  and  wonders  of  the  bridge  at 
closer  view.  My  permit  was  granted  on  the  express 
understanding  that  I  hold  nobody  responsible  for  any 
harm  that  might  befall.  I  was  fortunate  in  having 
with  me  as  companion  in  this  climb  Mr.  Varian,  the 
artist,  who  had  faced  perils  of  many  sorts,  but  none 
like  these. 

First  we  clambered,  pyramid  fashion,  up  the  pile 
of  granite,  big  as  a  church,  that  will  hold  the  cable- 
ends  ;  they  call  it  the  anchorage.  From  the  top  of  this 
we  could  look  along  the  iron  street  that  stretched  away 
in  a  slight  up-grade  toward  the  tower.  We  were 
on  a  level  with  the  roadway  of  the  bridge,  and  far 
below  us  spread  the  house-tops  of  Brooklyn.  Between 
our  stone  precipice  and  the  iron  street-end  yawned  a 
gulf  that  we  drew  back  from,  with  water  in  its  deepest 
bottom.  Here  the  cables  would  be  buried  some  day, 
sealed  and  cemented,  piled  over  with  masonry,  to  hold 
for  centuries. 

Standing  in  the  lee  of  a  block  that  kept  off  the  wind, 
we  looked  across  at  the  bridge,  and  planned  how  pres- 

182 


THE   BRIDGE-BUILDER  183 

ently  we  might  reach  it  by  skirting  the  moat-walls  and 
drawing  ourselves  up  at  yonder  corner  where  the  end- 
span  rested. 

Somehow,  seen  from  here,  the  iron  street  looked 
delicate,  not  massive;  its  sides  were  trellis-work,  its 
top  frames  gently  slanting,  and  one  could  fancy  the 
whole  thing  beautifully  grown  over  with  vines,  a 
graceful  arbor-way  suspended  in  mid-air.  And  down 
the  length  of  this  came  the  strangest  sounds — one 
would  say  a  company  of  woodpeckers  of  some  giant 
sort  making  riot  in  an  echoing  forest.  Br-r-r-ip-ip- 
ip-ip — br-r-r-r-up-up-up — br-r-r-ap-ap-ap-ap-ap.  What 
was  it?  Now  from  this  side,  up-up-up-br-r-r-up-up, 
and  ending  abruptly.  Then  straightway  from  near 
the  top  on  the  other  side,  ap-ap-ap-br-r-r-r-ap-ap-ap. 
Then  fainter  from  half-way  down  the  street,  and  then 
from  all  points  at  once,  a  chorus  of  hammer-birds  mak- 
ing the  bridge  resound  in  call  and  in  answer,  hammer- 
birds  with  strokes  as  swift  as  the  roll  of  a  drum. 
What  is  it? 

And  look!  Those  points  of  fire  that  glow  forth 
here  and  there  and  vanish  as  the  eye  perceives  them, 
tiny  red  lights,  tiny  yellow  lights,  that  flash  from  far 
down  the  iron  street  and  are  gone,  that  flash  from  all 
along  the  iron  street  and  are  gone!  W7hat  are  they? 
What  strange  work  is  doing  here  ? 

It  was  the  riveters  driving  the  endless  red-hot  bolts 
that  hold  the  bridge  together,  driving  them  with  ham- 
mers that  you  work  with  a  trigger,  and  aim  like  a  fire- 
man's hose,  hammers  with  rubber  pipes  dragging  be- 
hind that  feed  in  compressed  air  from  an  engine. 
Long  past  are  the  days  when  bolts  were  driven  by 
brawny  arms  and  the  slow  swing  of  a  sledge.  Now 
the  workman,  leaning  his  stomach  against  an  iron  club, 
touches  a  spring,  and,  presto!  the  hard-kicking,  pent- 


THE   BRIDGE-BUILDER  185 

up  air  inside  drives  the  darting1  club-head  back  and 
forth,  back  and  forth,  quick  as  a  snake  strikes,  br-r-r- 
r-r-ip-ip-ip-ip,  against  whatever  the  steering  arms  may 
press  it.  Driving  rivets  nowadays  is  something  like 
handling  a  rapid-fire  gun.  And  how  your  body  aches 
from  the  bruise  of  that  recoil ! 

"We  must  get  nearer  to  those  fellows,"  said  the 
artist ;  and  presently,  after  some  mild  hazards,  we  were 
safely  over  on  the  span,  quite  as  near  as  was  desirable 
to  a  gang  of  riveters  dangling  twenty  feet  above  us  on 
a  swing.  For  presently,  with  a  sputter  of  white  sparks, 
a  piece  of  red-hot  iron  struck  the  girder  we  were  strad- 
dling, and  then  went  bounding  down — down — 

"Nice,  hospitable  place,  this !"  remarked  the  artist, 
as  we  edged  under  cover  of  a  wide  steel  beam. 

Crouching  here,  we  watched  another  gang  of  riveters 
on  the  structure  opposite,  where  we  had  a  better  view, 
watched  the  forge-man  pass  along  the  glowing  rivets, 
and  the  buffer-man  slip  them  through  ready  holes,  and 
the  hammer-man  flatten  the  flaming  ends  into  smooth, 
burnished  heads.  And  presently  a  riveter  in  black 
cap  and  faded  blue  jersey  climbed  down  from  the 
swing  overhead,  and  explained  things  to  us.  He  did 
this  out  of  sheer  good  nature,  I  think,  although  he 
may  have  been  curious  to  know  what  two  men  with 
derby  hats  and  kodaks  were  doing  up  there.  We 
watched  his  descent  in  wonder  and  alarm,  for  it  in- 
volved some  lively  gymnastics,  that  he  entered  upon, 
however,  with  complete  indifference.  First  he  swung 
across  from  the  scaffolding  to  a  girder,  the  highest 
rail  of  the  bridge,  and  along  this  walked  as  coolly  as 
a  boy  on  a  wide  fence-top,  only  this  happened  to  be  a 
fence  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  high.  Then  he  bent 
over  and  caught  one  of  the  slanting  side  supports,  and 
down  this  worked  his  way  as  a  mountain-climber 


1 86  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 


A   STRANGE   WAY  TO 
GO  TO   MEALS. 


would  work  down  a  preci- 
pice.    Presently  he  stepped 
off     at     our     level, 
never  having  tak- 
en the  pipe  from 
his  mouth. 

When  we  asked 
how  he  dared  go 
about    so    care- 
lessly over  a 
they  all   did 
it,  or  else  got 
whistle  blew 

and  sliding  and  twisting  their  way  down  like  a  lot  of 
circus  performers.  That  's  how  they  came  to  dinner; 
that  's  how  they  got  back  aloft.  No,  sir ;  they  could  n't 
use  life-lines;  they  moved  about  too  much.  Besides, 
what  good  would  a  life-line  be  to  a  man  if  the  "falls" 


reeling  abyss,  he  said 
it;  they  all  got  used  to 
killed.  Why,  when  the 
we  'd  see  men  swinging 


THE    BRIDGE-BUILDER  187 

started  at  him  with  a  ten-ton  load,  yes,  or  a  twenty-ton 
load?  That  man  has  got  to  skip  along  pretty  lively, 
sir,  or  he  '11  get  hurt.  Did  he  mean  skip  along  over 
this  web  of  boards  and  girders?  I  inquired.  He  cer- 
tainly did,  and  we  'd  see  plenty  of  it,  if  we  stayed  up 
long.  The  artist  and  I  shook  our  heads  as  we  looked 
down  that  skeleton  roadway,  gaping  open  everywhere 
between  girders  and  planks,  in  little  gulfs,  ten  feet 
wide,  five  feet  wide,  two  feet  wide,  quite  wide  enough 
to  make  the  picture  of  a  man  skipping  over  them  a 
very  solemn  thing. 

Our  friend  went  on  to  tell  us  how  the  riveters  often 
get  into  tight  places,  say  on  the  tower,  where  there 
is  so  little  room  for  the  forge-man  to  heat  his  bolts 
that  he  has  to  throw  them  up  to  the  hammer-man, 
twenty  or  thirty  feet. 

"What!"  exclaimed  the  artist.  "Throw  red-hot 
bolts  twenty  or  thirty  feet  up  the  tower !" 

"That  's  what  they  do ;  and  we  've  got  boys  who  are 
pretty  slick  at  it.  They  '11  grab  a  bolt  out  of  the  fire 
with  long-handled  nippers,  and  give  her  a  swing  and 
a  twist,  and  away  she  goes  sizzling  through  the  air 
straight  at  the  man  above;  and  say,  they  don't  miss 
him  once  in  a  hundred  times;  and,  what  's  more,  they 
never  touch  a  truss  or  girder.  If  they  did  there  'd  be 
a  piece  of  red-hot  iron  sailing  down  on  the  lads  below, 
and  that  would  n't  be  good  for  their  health." 

"How  does  the  hammer-man  catch  these  red-hot 
bolts?"  I  asked. 

"In  a  bucket.  Catches  'em  every  time.  That  's  a 
thing  you  want  to  see,  too." 

There  were  so  many  things  we  wanted  to  see  in  this 
strange  region !  And  presently  we  set  forth  down  the 
iron  street,  keeping  in  mind  a  parting  caution  of  the 
riveter  not  to  look  at  our  feet,  but  at  the  way  before 


1 88  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

us,  and  never  to  look  down.  As  we  edged  ahead 
cautiously  (no  skipping  along  for  us,  thanks,  but  paus- 
ing often,  and  holding  fast  to  whatever  offered  sup- 
port), we  saw  that  all  the  bridge-men  come  over  the 
girders,  eyes  straight  ahead,  in  a  shuffling,  flat-footed 
way,  without  much  bend  in  the  knees.  Look,  there 
comes  one  of  them  in  from  the  end  of  a  long  black 
arm  that  pushes  out  like  a  bowsprit  over  the  gulf !  He 
has  been  hanging  out  there,  painting  the  iron.  In  the 
pose  of  his  body  he  is  a  tight-rope  walker,  in  the 
hitch  of  his  legs  he  is  a  convict,  in  the  blank  stare  of 
his  face  he  is  a  somnambulist.  Really  he  is  nothing 
so  complicated,  but  an  every-day  bridge-man  earning 
a  hard  living;  and  his  wife  would  be  torn  with  fears 
could  she  see  him  now. 

Presently  we  came  to  the  busiest  scene  on  the  struc- 
ture, down  where  the  covered  part  ended  and  the  iron 
roadway  reached  on,  bare  of  framework,  to  the  tower. 
Here  the  "traveler"  was  working  with  a  double  gang 
of  men,  raising  a  skeleton  of  sides  and  cross-beams 
that  were  pushing  on,  pushing  on  day  by  day,  and 
would  finally  stretch  across  the  river.  Once  on  the 
"traveler's''  deck,  we  breathed  easier,  for  here  we  were 
safe  from  fearsome  crevasses,  safe  on  a  great  wide 
raft  of  iron  and  timber,  set  on  double  railroad  tracks, 
a  lumbering  steam-giant  that  goes  resounding  along, 
when  the  need  is,  with  its  weight  of  four  locomotives, 
its  three-story  derricks  swinging  out  great  booms  at 
the  corners,  its  thumping  niggerhead  engines  (two  of 
them)  for  the  hoisting,  its  coal-bins,  its  water-tanks, 
its  coils  of  rope,  its  pile  of  lumber,  and  its  mascot 
kitten,  curled  up  there  by  the  ash-box  in  a  workman's 
coat.  They  say  the  bridge  has  to  wait  when  that  kit- 
ten wants  her  dinner,  and  woe  to  the  man  who  would 
treat  the  little  thing  unkindly ! 


THE   BRIDGE-BUILDER 


189 


This  "traveler,"  with  its  gangs,  is  a  sort  of  gigantic 
sewing-machine  that  stitches  the  bridge  together;  it 
lifts  all  the  parts  into  place  and  binds  them  fast,  as  it 
were,  with  basting-threads  of  temporary  iron,  to  hold 
until  the  riveters  arrive  for  the  permanent  sewing. 
Five  or  six  tons  is  the  weight  of  ordinary  pieces  han- 


•-f.  '•: 


"ITS   MASCOT   KITTEN,    CURLED   UP  THERE   BY   THE   ASH-BOX." 

died  by  the  traveler,  but  some  pieces  weigh  twenty 
.tons,  and,  on  a  pinch,  forty  tons  could  be  managed, 
the  weight  of  six  elephants  like  Jumbo.  Of  course, 
when  I  say  that  the  traveler  "stitches"  these  pieces 
together,  I  really  mean  that  the  "traveler"  gangs  do 
this,  for  the  big  brute  booms  can  only  lift  things  and 
swing  things ;  the  bolt-driving  and  end-fitting  must  be 
done  by  little  men. 

When  we  arrived  the  "traveler"  was  bringing  to  one 
spot  the  massive  parts  of  a  cross-section  in  our  arbor- 
way.  It  was  a  stretched-out  iron  W,  flattened  down 


190  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

between  girders  across  top  and  bottom.  This,  we 
learned,  was  a  "strut,"  and  it  weighed  sixteen  tons, 
and  it  would  presently  be  lifted  bodily  overhead  to 
span  the  roadway.  We  waited  a  full  hour  to  see  this 
thing  done — to  watch  another  stitch  taken  in  the 
bridge;  and  it  seems  to  me,  as  I  think  of  it,  that  I  can 
recall  no  hour  when  I  saw  so  many  perils  faced  with 
such  indifference. 

First,  the  booms  would  drop  down  their  clanking 
jaws  and  grip  the  chain-bound  girders  from  little  de- 
livery cars,  then  swing  them  around  to  the  lifting-place 
at  the  farther  end  of  the  traveler.  Now  we  under- 
stood what  our  friend  down  the  way  meant  by  "skip- 
ping along  lively  when  the  falls  come  at  you."  He 
meant  this  boom-tackle  and  its  load  as  they  sweep 
over  the  structure  in  blind,  merciless  force.  And,  in- 
deed, they  did  skip  along,  the  bridge-men,  as  the  trav- 
eler turned  its  arms  this  way  and  that,  and  several 
times  I  saw  a  man  slip  as  he  hurried,  and  barely  save 
himself.  A  single  misstep  might  mean  the  crush  of 
a  ten-ton  mass,  or  a  plunge  into  space,  or  both.  It 
seemed  a  pretty  shivery  choice. 

"One  of  our  boys  got  hit  this  morning,"  said  a  man. 

"Hit  by  the  falls?" 

"Yes;  he  tried  to  dodge,  but  his  foot  caught  some- 
how, and  he  got  it  hard  right  here."  He  touched  his 
thigh.  "It  flattened  him  out,  just  over  there  where 
that  man  's  making  fast  the  load." 

"Was  he  badly  hurt?" 

"Pretty  bad,  I  guess.  He  could  n't  get  up,  and  we 
lowered  him  in  a  coal-box  with  a  runner;  that  's  a 
single  line.  You  see,  it  's  very  easy  to  take  a  wrong 
step." 

Presently  somebody  yelled  something,  and  this  man 
moved  away  to  his  task;  but  we  were  joined  almost 


RIDING    UP   ON    AN    EIGHTEEN-TON    COLUMN. 


192  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

immediately  by  another  bridge-man,  who  told  us  how 
they  ride  the  big  steel  columns  from  the  ground  clear 
to  the  cap  of  the  tower.  Two  men  usually  ride  on  a 
column,  their  duty  being  to  keep  her  from  bumping 
against  the  structure  as  she  lifts,  and  then  bolt  her  fast 
when  she  reaches  the  top.  Of  course,  as  a  tower 
grows  in  height,  these  rides  become  more  and  more 
terrifying,  so  that  some  of  the  men  who  are  equal  to 
anything  else  draw  back  from  riding  up  a  column. 

These  fears  were  justified  just  at  the  last  on  the 
New  York  tower,  and  a  man  named  Jack  McGreggor 
had  an  experience  that  might  well  have  blanched  his 
hair.  They  had  reached  the  325-foot  level,  and  were 
placing  the  last  lengths  of  column  but  one,  and  Mc- 
Greggor was  riding  up  one  of  these  lengths  alone.  It 
was  a  huge  mass  twenty-five  feet  long,  square  in  sec- 
tion, and  large  enough  to  admit  a  winding  ladder  in- 
side. It  weighed  eighteen  tpns.  As  the  overhead 
boom  lifted  the  pendent  length  (with  McGreggor 
astride)  and  swung  it  clear  of  the  column  it  was  to 
rest  on,  the  foreman,  watching  there  like  a  hawk,  wig- 
gled his  thumb  to  the  signal-man  on  a  platform  below, 
who  pulled  four  strokes  on  the  bell,  which  meant 
"boom  up"  to  the  engine-man.  So  up  came  the  boom, 
and  in  came  the  column,  hanging  now  in  true  perpen- 
dicular, with  McGreggor  ready  to  slide  down  from  his 
straddling  seat  for  the  bolting. 

Now  the  foreman  flapped  his  hand  palm  down,  and 
the  signal-man  was  just  about  to  jerk  two  bells,  which 
means  "lower  your  load,"  when  rip — smash — tear! 
Far  down  below  a  terrible  thing  had  happened:  the 
frame  of  the  engine  had  snapped  right  over  the  bear- 
ing, and  out  pulled  the  cable  drum  that  was  holding 
the  strain  of  that  eighteen-ton  column,  and  down  came 
the  falls.  It  was  just  like  an  elevator  breaking  loose 


THE   BRIDGE-BUILDER  193 

at  the  top  of  its  shaft.  The  column  started  to  fall; 
there  was  nothing  to  stop  it;  and  then — and  then  a 
miracle  was  worked;  it  must  have  been  a  miracle; 
it  is  so  extraordinary.  That  falling  column  struck 
squarely,  end  to  end,  on  the  solid  column  beneath  it, 
rocked  a  little,  righted  itself,  and  stayed  there !  Which 
was  more  than  Jack  McGreggor  did,  for  he  came  slid- 
ing down  so  fast — he  came  with  a  wild,  white  face — 
that  he  all  but  knocked  the  foreman  over ;  and  the  fore- 
man was  white  himself.  And  what  that  eighteen-ton 
column  would  have  done  to  the  bridge,  and  the  boys 
on  it,  had  it  crashed  down  those  three  hundred  and 
twenty-five  feet,  is  still  a  subject  of  awed  discussion. 

All  this  time  a  dozen  men  have  been  swrarming  over 
the  strut,  hammering  bolts,  tightening  nuts,  hitching 
fast  the  "falls,"  making  sure  that  all  parts  are  rigid 
and  everything  ready  for  the  lifting.  At  the  front  of 
the  traveler  two  foremen,  "pushers"  they  are  called, 
yell  without  ceasing :  "Hey,  Gus !  Hey !  Hey,  Jimtnie ! 
Put  that  winch  in!  Slack  away  them  falls!  What 
the  mischief  are  you  doing?  Hey!  Hey!"  And 
they  shake  their  hands  and  dance  on  their  toes,  for 
all  the  world  like  a  pair  of  mad  auctioneers. 

The  men  work  faster  under  this  vigorous  coaching. 
Four  or  five  are  stretched  flat  on  their  stomachs  along 
the  top  girder,  as  many  more  cling  to  steep  slanting 
braces,  and  some  hang  fast  to  the  uprights,  with  legs 
twisted  around  them  like  Japanese  pole-climbers.  No 
matter  .what  his  position,  every  man  plies  a  tool  of 
some  sort — wrench,  chisel,  or  sledge,  and  presently  all 
is  ready. 

Now  the  niggerheads  start  with  a  pounding  and 
sputtering  that  make  the  bridge  quiver.  The  big 
spools  haul  fast  on  the  ropes,  the  falls  stiffen,  the 
booms  creak,  and  with  shouts  from  every  one,  the 

13 


194  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

strut  heaves  and  lifts  and  hangs  suspended.  The 
"pushers"  yell  at  the  niggerheads  to  stop.  The  men 
swarm  over  the  load,  studying  every  joint,  then  wave 
that  all  is  well,  and  come  sliding,  twisting  down  just 
as  the  engines  start  again,  all  but  two  men,  who  sit  at 
the  ends  and  ride  along  with  the  hoist.  Meantime  the 
others  are  racing  up  the  side  frames,  from  slant  to  slant 
to  the  top  of  the  truss,  where  they  wait  eagerly,  yelling 
the  while,  at  the  points  on  either  side,  where  pres- 
ently the  strut-ends  must  be  adjusted  and  then  bolted 
fast. 

It  seems  like  some  mad  school-boy  game  of  romps. 
Now  we  '11  all  swing  over  this  precipice !  Whoop-la ! 
Now  we  '11  all  run  across  this  gulf !  Wow !  wow !  wow ! 
Every  man  in  that  scrambling  crew  is  facing  two 
deaths,  or  three  deaths,  and  doing  hard  work  besides. 
Look!  There  comes  the  strut  up  to  its  place,  and 
nearly  crushes  Jimmie  Dunn  with  its  sharp  edge,  as  a 
strut  did  crush  another  lad  not  so  long  ago.  And  see 
that  man  hang  out  in  a  noose  of  a  rope,  hang  out  over 
nothing,  and  drive  in  bolts.  And  see  this  fellow  kick 
off  on  the  free  pulley-block  and  come  sliding  down. 
Hoooo !  And  there  are  the  others  jumping  at  the  falls 
after  him,  and  coming  down  with  a  rush,  laughing. 
Risking  their  lives?  One  would  say  they  never 
thought  of  it. 

"Why,  that  's  nothing !"  said  one  of  them ;  "we  used 
to  slide  down  the  falls  from  the  top  of  the  tower.  But 
you  've  got  to  know  the  trick  or  the  ropes  '11  burn 
through  your  trousers.  It 's  a  great  slide,  though." 

"Are  n't  you  ever  afraid  of  falling?"  I  asked  a 
serious-faced  young  man  who  was  running  one  of  the 
niggerheads. 

"I  '11  tell  you  how  it  is,"  said  he ;  "we  're  not  afraid 
when  a  lot  of  us  do  a  thing  together,  but  each  one 


ON  THE  "TRAVELER."    HOISTING  A  STRUT. 


196  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

might  be  afraid  to  do  it  alone.  In  our  hearts  I  guess 
we  're  all  afraid." 

"Ever  have  an  accident  yourself?" 

"No,"  he  said,  "but — "  He  hesitated,  and  then  ex- 
plained that  he  had  been  standing  near  the  day  "Chick" 
Chandler  fell  from  the  Brooklyn  tower.  It  had  n't 
been  a  nice  thing  to  see,  and— 

Finally  I  got  the  story.  Chandler,  it  seems,  was  the 
first  man  killed  on  the  bridge,  and  he  died  for  a  jest. 
He  was  working  that  day  on  the  one-hundred-and-ten- 
foot  level ;  he  was  an  experienced  man  and  counted  sure 
of  foot.  It  had  begun  to  sprinkle,  and  the  men  were 
looking  about  for  their  rain-coats,  when  Chandler,  in 
a  spirit  of  mischief,  started  across  a  girder  for  an  oil- 
skin that  belonged  to  a  comrade.  And  so  interested 
was  he  in  this  little  prank  that  he  forgot  prudence,  per- 
haps forgot  where  he  was,  and  the  next  second  he  was 
falling,  and  presently  there  was  the  shock  of  impact  far 
below,  and  then  a  red  No.  i  was  branded  on  the  ugly 
black  bridge. 


Ill 


WHICH    TELLS    OF    MEN    WHO    HAVE    FALLEN 
FROM    GREAT    HEIGHTS 

/T^HERE  is  this  to  note  about  falls  from  bridges, 
A  that  the  very  short  ones  often  kill  as  surely  as  the 
long  ones.  They  told  me  of  one  case  where  a  man  fell 
eight  feet  and  broke  his  neck,  while  other  men  have 
fallen  from  great  heights  and  escaped.  A  workman 
of  the  Berlin  Bridge  Company,  for  instance,  fell  from 
a  structure  in  New  Hampshire,  one  hundred  and 
twenty  feet,  and  lived.  And  I  myself  saw  Harr^ 
Fleager  on  the  East  River  Bridge,  New  York,  and 
from  his  own  lips  heard  his  remarkable  experience. 
Fleager  is  to-day  a  sturdy,  active  young  man,  and 
when  I  saw  him  he  was  running  a  thumping  nigger- 
head  engine  on  the  end-span.  Nevertheless,  it  was 
only  a  few  months  since  he  had  fallen  ninety-seven  feet 
smash  down  to  a  pile  of  bricks. 

"It  happened  this  way,"  said  he.  "One  of  the  big 
booms  broke  under  its  load  just  over  where  I  was 
standing,  and  the  tackle-block  swung  around  and 
caught  me  back  of  the  head.  That  knocked  me  off  the 
false  work,  and  I  went  straight  down  to  the  ground. 
Just  to  show  you  the  force  of  my  fall,  sir,  I  struck  a 
timber  about  thirty  feet  before  I  landed;  it  was  eight 
inches  wide  and  four  inches  thick,  and  I  snapped  it  off 
without  hardly  slowing  up.  After  that  I  lay  for  a 
week  in  the  hospital  with  bruises,  but  there  was  n't  a 
bone  broken,  and  I  Ve  been  at  work  ever  since." 

197 


198  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

Several  times  while  I  was  seeking  permission  to  go 
up  on  the  structure  I  was  treated  to  stories  like  this  and 
to  mild  dissuasion.  It  was  too  dangerous  a  thing,  they 
said,  for  a  man  to  undertake  lightly.  And  I  did  not 
succeed  until  I  met  the  engineer  in  charge,  Charles  E. 
Bedell,  a  forceful,  quiet-mannered  man,  who,  after; 
some  talk,  granted  my  request.  He  did  not  dwell  so 
much  on  the  danger  as  the  others  had,  although  he  did 
say :  "Of  course  you  take  all  the  risks." 

"Do  you  think  they  are  very  great?"  I  asked. 

"Not  if  you  use  ordinary  caution  and  are  not  afraid." 

Fear  was  the  fatal  thing,  he  said,  and  he  told  me  of 
men  who  simply  cannot  endure  such  heights.  Every 
day  or  two  some  new  hand  would  start  down  the  lad- 
ders almost  before  he  had  reached  the  top,  and  come 
into  the  office  saying  he  could  n't  stand  the  job. 

"But  you  go  ahead,"  said  Mr.  Bedell ;  "you  '11  come 
through  all  right.  Just  take  it  easy  and  be  careful." 
Then  he  handed  me  a  permit. 


We  have  seen  how  I  fared  on  the  bridge;  let  me 
show  now  what  befell  this  brilliant  young  engineer 
a  couple  of  months  later,  and  observe  how  his  own 
case  illustrates  the  paralyzing  effect  of  fear  upon  a 
man.  For  months  he  had  gone  over  the  structure 
daily,  as  sure  of  himself  at  those  giddy  heights  as  on 


THE   BRIDGE-BUILDER  199 

the  ground.  He  never  took  chances,  and  he  never  felt 
afraid.  But  one  day  a  workman  fell  from  far  above 
him  and  was  crushed  to  death  right  before  his  eyes, 
and  this  was  more  of  a  shock  to  him  than  he  realized. 
1  How  much  of  a  shock  it  had  been  was  shown  weeks 
later,  when  the  hour  of  peril  came.  It  was  a  pleasant 
day  in  September,  and  the  bridge  was  singing  its  busy 
song  in  the  morning  sunshine.  The  engineer  in  charge 
had  made  his  round  of  inspection,  and  was  standing 
idly  on  the  false  work  under  the  end-span.  He  was 
just  over  the  street,  and  could  look  down  upon  his 
own  office,  a  hundred  feet  or  so  below.  Every  timber 
and  girder  here  was  familiar  to  him.  Rumbling  along 
on  the  trestle  track  came  the  big  "traveler,"  its  four 
booms  groaning  under  their  iron  loads.  The  "trav- 
eler" came  on  slowly,  as  befits  a  huge  thing  weighing 
one  hundred  and  fifty  tons.  The  engineer  was  whit- 
tling a  stick.  The  "traveler"  came  nearer,  with  one 
of  its  booms  swinging  toward  Bedell,  but  lazily.  He 
had  plenty  of  time  to  step  aside.  One  step  to  the 
right,  one  step  to  the  left,  one  step  forward  was  all 
he  need  take.  Of  course,  he  would  not  think  of  tak- 
ing a  step  backward,  for  there  was  destruction — there 
yawned  the  gulf.  It.  was  inconceivable  to  the  man 
on  the  "traveler"  that  his  chief,  who  knew  all  about 
everything,  would  take  a  step  backward. 

Still  the  engineer  in  charge  did  not  move.  The 
boom  swung  nearer.  Still  he  whittled  at  his  stick.  His 
thoughts  were  far  away.  The  man  on  the  "traveler" 
shouted,  and  Bedell  looked  up.  Now  he  saw,  and  the 
sudden  fear  he  had  never  known  surged  in  his  heart. 
He  had  still  time  to  step  aside,  but  his  mind  could  not 
act.  The  boom  was  on  him.  Up  went  his  right  arm 
to  clutch  it,  and  back  reeled  his  body.  His  right  hand 
missed,  his  left  hand  caught  the  stringer  as  he  fell, 


200  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

caught  its  sharp  edge  and  held  there  by  the  fingers— 
the  left-hand  fingers — for  five,  six,  seven  seconds  or 
so,  legs  swinging  in  the  void.  Down  sprang  the  man 
on  the  ''traveler,"  and  leaped  along  the  ties  to  his  re- 
lief, and  reached  the  spot  to  find  the  fingers  gone,  to 
see  far  below  on  the  stones  a  broken,  huddled  heap 
that  lay  still.  So  died  the  man  who  had  been  kind  to 
me  (as  they  say  he  was  kind  to  every  one),  and  who 
had  warned  me  to  "take  it  easy  and  be  careful." 

Despite  the  constant  peril  of  their  days,  the  nights 
of  bridge-builders  are  often  spent  in  gaiety.  The 
habit  of  excitement  holds  them  even  in  their  leisure, 
and  many  a  sturdy  riveter  has  danced  away  the  small 
hours  and  been  on  his  swing  at  the  tower-top  betimes 
the  next  morning.  They  are  whole-souled,  frank- 
spoken  young  fellows  (there  are  few  old  bridge-men), 
and  to  spend  an  evening  at  their  club,  on  West  Thirty- 
second  Street,  is  a  thing  worth  doing. 

On  the  street  floor  is  a  cafe,  not  to  say  saloon,  where 
the  walls  are  hung  with  churches  and  bridges  and  tow- 
ering structures,  monuments  to  the  skill  of  the  builders 
who  have  passed  this  way.  And  if  you  will  join  a 
group  at  one  of  these  tables  and  speak  them  fair  you 
may  hear  enough  tales  of  the  lads  who  work  aloft  for 
many  a  writing.  And  up  and  down  the  stairs  move 
lines  of  bridge-men,  all  restless,  one  would  say,  and 
some  pass  on  crutches  and  some  with  arms  in  slings 
(there  is  a  story  in  every  cripple),  and  you  hear  that 
New  York  has  half  a  dozen  one-legged  bridge-men 
still  fairly  active  in  service.  It  's  once  a  bridge-man 
always  a  bridge-man,  for  the  life  has  its  fascination, 
like  the  circus. 

As  I  sat  in  a  corner  one  evening  with  Zimmer  and 
Jimmie  Dunn  and  some  of  the  others,  there  came  down 
from  overhead  a  racket  that  almost  drowned  our  buzz 


THE   BRIDGE-BUILDER  201 

of  talk  and  the  frequent  ting  of  the  bar  register.  The 
bridge-men  were  in  vigorous  debate  over  the  question 
whether  or  not  the  interests  of  the  craft  call  for  more 
flooring  on  dangerous  structures.  Some  said  "yes," 
some  "no,"  and  said  it  with  vehemence.  More  flooring- 
meant  less  danger.  That  was  all  right,  but  less  dan- 
ger meant  more  competition  and  less  pay.  So  there 
you  are,  and  the  majority  favored  danger  with  a  gen- 
erous wrage. 

"What  kind  of  men  make  bridge-men?"  I  inquired. 

"All  kinds,"  said  one  of  the  group  who  was  drink- 
ing birch-beer.  "Some  come  out  of  machine-shops, 
some  out  of  locomotive  works,  I  was  a  'shanty- jack.'  ' 

"Lots  of  'em  come  from  farms,"  added  another. 
"I  knowy  one  fellow  tried  it  who  'd  been  a  tailor.  Said 
he  changed  for  his  health." 

This  struck  the  company  as  highly  amusing. 

"There  's  lots  of  'em  try  it  and  quit,"  remarked 
Jimmie  Dunn,  who  is  one  of  the  oldest  and  also  one  of 
the  youngest  men  in  the  guild.  I  had  seen  him  nearly 
killed  a  few  days  before  by  the  sudden  up-swing  of  a 
sixteen-ton  strut.  "I  knew  a  telegraph-pole  climber 
who  said  he  did  n't  mind  any  old  kind  of  a  tower; 
he  'd  go  up  it  all  right  and  work  there.  Well,  he  got 
all  he  wanted  the  first  morning.  Came  down  white  as 
that  paper.  Said  he  would  n't  stay  up  half  an  hour 
longer  if  they  'd  give  him  the  whole  blamed  bridge. 
Why,  it  gets  us  fellows  dizzy  once  in  a  while." 

"I  '11  bet  it  does,"  agreed  the  shanty-jack  man.  "I 
saw  an  old  hand  once  start  to  ride  up  a  barrel  of  water 
one  hundred  and  seventy  feet  on  a  bridge  over  the  St. 
Lawrence.  The  barrel  was  swung  on  a  'single  run- 
ner,' and  you  ought  to  have  seen  it  spin  with  his  weight 
tipping  it  lopsided !  Ain't  any  bridge-man  going  could 
have  kept  his  head  there.  'T  was  a  fool  thing  to  do, 


202  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

and  the  only  way  this  fellow  got  up  alive  was  by  drop- 
ping plumb  into  the  barrel  of  water  and  shutting  his 
eyes." 

'Talking  about  close  calls,"  spoke  up  Zimmer,  "I 
can  beat  that.  It  was  out  in  Illinois.  We  were  rivet- 
ing on  a  high  building,  where  the  roof  came  up  in  a 
steep  slant  from  each  side  to  a  ridge  at  the  top.  There 
were  about  twenty  of  us  on  this  roof,  and  the  way 
we  'd  work  was  in  pairs,  one  man  on  one  side  and  his 
partner  on  the  other  side,  with  a  rope  between  'em, 
reaching  over  the  ridge,  and  the  two  men  hung  at  the 
two  ends,  each  one  balancing  the  other,  like  two  buck- 
ets down  a  well.  We  had  to  get  up  some  scheme  like 
that,  or  we  could  n't  have  stuck  on  the  roof;  it  was 
too  steep. 

"WTell,  that  was  all  right  as  long  as  both  men  kept 
their  weight  on  the  rope,  but  you  can  see  where  one 
would  be  if  the  other  happened  to  let  go.  He  'd  be 
chasing  down  a  nice  little  hill  of  corrugated  iron  on 
a  sixty-degree  slant,  and  then  over  the  eaves  for  a 
hundred-and-ten-foot  drop.  It  was  n't  any  merry  jest, 
you  'd  better  believe,  but  we  did  n't  think  much  about 
it  and  riveted  away,  until  one  morning  a  fellow  on  my 
side  got  his  foot  out  of  the  noose  somehow,  and  began 
to  slide  down.  Say,  he  was  about  as  cool  a  man  as 
I  ever  heard  of.  I  '11  never  forget  how  he  sort  of 
winked  at  me  as  he  started,  and  what  he  said. 

"  'Going  to  blazes,  I  reckon,'  said  he.  Those  were 
his  very  words.  And  down  he  went;  could  n't  stop 
himself,  and  we  could  n't  help  him,  it  all  happened  so 
quick.  He  got  to  the  eaves,  his  feet  went  over,  he  was 
just  plunging  into  space  when  his  overalls  caught  on  a 
rivet  that  somebody  had  left  sticking  up  there.  And 
there  he  stuck.  Then  he  said,  with  just  the  same  com- 
ical look,  'Saved  by  a  miracle,  by  thunder !' 


WALKING  A   GIRDER  TWO   HUNDRED   FEET   IN   AIR. 


204  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

"Must  have  been  a  double  miracle,  for  the  man  on 
the  other  side  started  to  drop,  too,  when  the  rope 
slacked,  and  he  'd  have  been  killed  sure  if  a  knot  in 
the  rope  had  n't  happened  to  catch  under  a  piece  of 
loose  iron  on  the  ridge.  Say,  it  's  that  kind  of  busi- 
ness whitens  out  a  man's  hair." 

"It  's  a  bridge-man's  fate  settles  these  things, 
friends,"  commented  another  member  of  the  group. 
And  he  instanced  a  case  where  this  fate  had  followed 
in  cruel  pursuit  of  two  brothers  named  Johnson, 
Michael  and  Dan,  good  men  both  on  the  girders.  Dan, 
it  seems,  had  been  crushed  by  a  swinging  load  on  a 
West  Virginia  bridge,  and  lay  crippled  in  the  hospital, 
only  the  wreck  of  a  man,  whereupon  Michael,  zealous 
in  his  brother's  cause,  had  followed  the  work  over 
into  Kentucky,  where  a  bridge  was  building  across 
the  river  at  Covington.  His  purpose  was  to  bring  suit 
against  the  company  for  the  injury  done  to  Dan. 

"And  here  came  the  fateful  part  of  it,  for  scarcely 
had  Michael  set  foot  upon  the  structure — he  had  cer- 
tainly not  been  ten  minutes  upon  it — when  the  false 
work  gave  Way  and  two  iron  spans,  unsupported 
now,  tipped  slowly,  then  smashed  down  into  the  river, 
carrying  with  them  ruin  and  death.  In  this  catas- 
trophe were  numbered  some  dozens  of  wounded  and 
killed,  and  among  the  latter  was  Michael  Johnson, 
found  under  the  river  standing  upright  in  a  tangle 
of  wreckage,  caught  and  held  by  the  bridge-man's 
fate." 

Then  another  man  told  the  story  of  a  falling  bridge 
that  thrilled  me  more  than  this  one,  although  there  was 
in  it  no  loss  of  life.  I  always  feel  that  a  man  who 
faces  death  unflinchingly  for  a  fairly  long  time  shows 
greater  heroism,  even  though  death  be  driven  back, 
than  another  man  who  suffers  some  sudden  taking  off 


THE   BRIDGE-BUILDER  205 

with  no  choice  left  him.  This  bridge  was  building 
at  White  River  Junction,  Vermont,  over  the  upper 
waters  of  the  Connecticut.  There  was  a  single  iron 
span  reaching  two  hundred  feet  between  piers  of  ma- 
sonry, and  everything  was  ready  to  swing  her  off  the 
false  work  except  the  driving  of  a  few  iron  pins.  And 
a  bridge  swung  is  a  bridge  practically  finished,  so  it 
was  merely  a  matter  of  hours  to  put  the  contractors 
at  ease  of  mind  against  any  dangers  of  the  torrent. 
Meantime  the  dangers  were  there,  for  heavy  rains  had 
fallen  and  angered  the  river  with  a  gorge  of  mountain 
streams. 

At  five  o'clock  of  an  afternoon  the  engineer  in 
charge  saw  that  a  crisis  was  approaching.  The  waters 
were  sweeping  down  runaway  logs  in  fiercer  and  fiercer 
bombardment,  and  it  was  a  question  if  the  false  work 
could  hold  against  them.  And  for  the  time  being, 
until  morning  surely,  the  false  work  must  carry  the 
span.  If  the  false  work  went  the  span  would  go,  and 
the  bridge  would  be  destroyed. 

So  the  chief  engineer  ordered  all  hands  down  on 
scows  and  rafts,  which  were  straightway  jammed  close 
against  the  false  work  by  the  current.  Down  on  these 
lurching  platforms  went  seventeen  bridge-men,  and  set 
to  work  with  iron-shod  pike-poles,  spearing  the  plung- 
ing logs  as  they  came  by  and  swinging  them  out 
through  the  bents  of  false  work,  down  roaring  lanes 
of  water  twenty  feet  wide  between  the  legs  of  scaffold- 
ing. If  these  could  be  protected  from  the  logs,  the 
bridge  might  be  saved ;  if  they  could  not  be  protected, 
the  bridge  was  doomed.  It  was  the  strength  and 
skill  of  the  pike-pole  lads  against  the  fury  of  the 
river. 

For  nine  hours  the  battle  lasted,  and  all  this  time 
the  bridge-men  worked  wonders  down  in  the  black 


206  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

night,  with  rain  beating  on  them  in  torrentc  and  the 
logs  coming  faster  and  harder  as  the  hours  passed. 
Every  man  in  the  crew  realized  that  the  false  work 
might  give  way  at  any  moment,  for  the  whole  structure 
was  groaning  and  shivering  as  they  swung  against  it, 
and  they  knew  that  if  it  went  at  all  it  would  go  as  one 
piece,  without  a  moment's  warning.  And  that  would 
mean  sudden  death  in  the  river  under  the  crush  of  a 
broken  bridge.  Yet  no  man  shirked  his  duty,  and 
long  after  midnight  they  were  there  on  the  scows 
still,  fighting  the  logs  with  bridge-men's  grit  and  the 
comfort  of  steaming  hot  coffee — well,  we  may  call  it 
coffee. 

But  it  was  a  hopeless  fight  now;  the  engineer  saw 
this,  and  at  two  o'clock  ordered  all  hands  off  the  scows 
and  back  to  the  shore.  There  is  a  point  beyond  which 
you  cannot  allow  men  to  go  on  offering  their  lives. 
And  scarcely  five  minutes  later — indeed,  the  last  man 
was  barely  off  the  structure,  so  our  friend  declared, 
and  he  was  one  of  the  seventeen — the  false  work  ripped 
loose  and  was  swept  away,  and  the  iron  span  crashed 
down  into  the  furious  flood. 

After  this  Zimmer  described  his  sensations  in  a  fall 
of  one  hundred  and  thirty-five  feet  from  the  eighth 
story  of  a  skyscraper  they  were  putting  up  out  West. 
He  was  sitting  on  an  upright  column  of  the  steel  skele- 
ton, waiting  to  pin  fast  a  cross-beam,  when  a  girder 
swung  over  from  the  other  side  and  struck  him.  It 
weighed  a  matter  of  six  tons.  Down  went  Zimmer, 
and,  as  he  dropped,  he  caught  at  a  granite  block  rest- 
ing loose  there  and  toppled  it  over  with  him.  And  the 
thought  in  his  mind  as  he  fell  was  that  here  was  an 
interesting  illustration  of  what  he  had  learned  at  school 
about  a  heavy  body  falling  faster  than  a  light  one, 
for  although  he  had  a  start  of  eight  feet  on  the  granite 


THE   BRIDGE-BUILDER  207 

block,  it  passed  him  one  story  down,  and  smashed 
ahead  through  a  staging  that  might  have  saved  him. 
Then,  as  the  stone  sheered  off,  he  estimated,  did  Zim- 
mer  (falling  still),  that  its  weight  was  about'  fifteen 
hundred  pounds.  Then  he  himself  smashed  through 
two  stagings  and  caught  at  a  rope,  which  burned 
through  his  gloves,  and  the  next  thing  he  knew  was 
days  later  at  the  hospital,  where  somebody  was  bend- 
ing over  him  saying :  "Will  you  please  tell  me  about 
your  sensations  coming  down?"  "And  there  was  a 
newspaper  reporter  trying  to  interview  me,"  said  Zim- 
mer,  "which  is  what  you  might  call  rushing  things." 

"Tell  ye  a  fall  that  stirred  us  boys  all  right,"  said 
another  man.  "It  was  in  the  big  shaft  at  Niagara 
Falls.  You  know  where  they  send  electricity  all  over 
the  State.  The  shaft  was  a  hundred  and  eighty  feet 
deep,  and  they  used  to  lower  us  down  in  a  boat  swung 
from  an  iron  cable.  Well,  one  day  the  drum  slipped 
and  let  the  whole  business  fall  free  with  five  of  us  in 
the  boat.  We  went  clear  down  one  hundred  and  sev- 
enty feet,  and  the  boat  fell  away  under  us  just  like  that 
granite  block  of  Zimmer's,  and  there  we  were  hanging 
fast  to  the  corner  chains  and  every  man  of  us  expect- 
ing to  die.  But  somehow  the  engineer  got  his  brakes 
on  just  as  we  were  ten  feet  above  bottom,  and  blamed  if 
we  did  n't  land  fairly  easy  without  a  man  hurt.  Just 
the  same,  we  'd  looked  over  our  lives  pretty  well  in 
those  few  seconds." 

After  this  came  tragic  memories  from  other  men. 
One  recalled  the  terrible  wreck  of  the  Cornwall  bridge 
over  the  St.  Lawrence.  Another  the  disaster  at  Louis- 
ville, when  two  great  iron  spans,  reaching  a  thousand 
feet,  went  down  into  the  Ohio,  with  false  work,  "trav- 
eler," and  sixty-five  men,  of  whom  only  four  escaped. 
"And  one  of  the  four,  sir,  was  on  the  "traveler,"  two 


208  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

hundred  feet  above  the  water,  when  she  went  down. 
Never  had  a  scratch." 

So  the  talk  ran  on,  and  I  came  away  with  mingled 
feelings  of  wonder  and  admiration  and  sadness.  Here 
are  men  who  leave  their  families  every  morning  with 
full  knowledge  that  before  nightfall  disaster  may  smite 
them,  as  they  have  seen  it  smite  their  comrades.  Why, 
one  asks,  do  they  keep  to  such  a  career?  And  if  they 
believe,  as  apparently  they  do,  that  bridge-men  are 
fated  to  violent  death,  why  do  they  not  leave  this  work 
and  seek  a  safer  calling? 

I  suppose  the  same  reason  holds  them  to  the  bridge 
that  holds  the  diver  to  his  suit,  the  climber  to  his  stee- 
ple, each  one  of  us  to  his  particular  path — it  is  so 
hard  to  find  another.  And  then  there  is  the  lash  of 
pressing  need,  the  home  to  keep,  and  no  time  for  ex- 
periment. Yet  there  are  the  hard  facts  always,  that  no 
insurance  company  will  take  a  risk  upon  these  lives, 
that  bridge  contractors  are  not  philanthropists  nor 
issuers  of  pensions,  and  that  if  a  man  fall  from  the 
structure,  say  at  11.50  A.M.,  his  pay  stops  short  not 
at  twelve  o'clock,  but  at  ten  minutes  before  twelve. 
Which  is  probably  excellent  business,  although  it  seems 
poor  humanity. 


THE  FIREMAN 

i 

WHEREIN    WE    SEE    A    SLEEPING    VILLAGE    SWEPT 

BY    A    RIVER    OF    FIRE    AND    THE    BURNING 

OF    A    FAMOUS    HOTEL 

I  WILL  first  tell  a  story,  fresh  in  my  memory,  about 
a  New  Jersey  village  lost  in  the  hills  back  of  Lake 
Hopatcong,  a  charming,  sleepy  little  village  that 
reaches  along  a  stream  fringed  with  butterball-trees 
and  looks  contentedly  out  of  its  valley  up  the  steep 
wooded  hill  that  rises  before  it.  Nobody  in  Glen  Gard- 
ner cares  much  what  there  is  in  the  world  beyond  that 
hill. 

The  general  attitude  of  Glen  Gardner  toward  prog- 
ress is  shown  well  enough  by  this,  that  the  village  could 
never  see  the  use  of  a  fire  department.  They  never 
had  one,  and  never  proposed  to;  other  people's  houses 
might  get  on  fire;  theirs  never  did.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  nobody  could  remember  when  there  had  been  a 
fire  in  Glen  Gardner,  unless  it  was  Aunt  Ann  Fritts, 
who  was  eighty-eight  years  old,  and  remembered  back 
farther  than  was  necessary. 

This  was  the  case  on  a  certain  drizzling  Sunday 
in  March  of  the  new-century  year,  when,  at  6.30  A.M., 
the  world  beyond  the  hill  intruded  itself  upon  Glen 
Gardner's  peacefulness  in  such  strange  and  sudden 
fashion  that  old  Mrs.  Bergstresser  collapsed  from  the 
shock.  What  made  it  worse  was  the  fact  that  there  had 
14  209 


THE    FIREMAN  211 

been  a  dance  the  night  before  at  Farmer  Apgar's,  and 
half-past  six  found  most  of  the  village  dozing  comfort- 
ably. There  was  really  nothing  to  do  before  church- 
time.  So  they  all  thought,  at  least,  little  suspecting 
that  even  now,  as  they  slept,  a  long  oil-train  was  puff- 
ing up  the  steep  grade  from  Easton,  bringing  sixty 
cars  loaded  with  crude  petroleum  and  trouble. 

On  came  the  oil-train,  its  front  engine  panting  as 
the  drivers  slipped,  and  the  "pusher"'  back  of  the 
caboose  shouldering  up  the  load  with  snorts  of  impa- 
tience. Ouf !  The  front  of  the  train  climbs  over  the 
ridge  at  Hampton  Junction,  half  a  mile  back  of  Glen 
Gardner,  where  the  Jersey  Central  tracks  reach  their 
highest  point.  Now  they  are  all  right.  There  is  a 
long  down  grade  ahead  for  three  miles.  The  pusher 
gives  a  final  shove  at  the  rear  end,  and  cuts  loose,  glad 
to  be  rid  of  the  job.  The  men  in  the  caboose  wave 
good-by  to  the  fireman  and  engineer  as  they  drop 
away. 

Hello !  What  's  that  jerk  ?  They  look  out  and  see 
the  last  oil-car  just  clearing  the  divide.  It  's  nothing ; 
they  're  over  now;  they  're  running  faster.  Queer 
place,  this !  There  's  a  spring  here  with  two  streams 
that  part  in  the  middle  like  a  woman's  hair;  one  goes 
down  the  east  side,  the  other  down  the  west  side. 
What?  Broken  in  two? 

The  caboose  crew  start  to  run  forward ;  a  brakeman 
on  the  front  half  starts  to  run  back.  Thirty-seven 
cars  behind  the  engine  a  coupling  has  snapped,  and 
the  train  is  taking  the  down  grade  in  two  sections : 
twenty-three  loaded  oil-cars  are  running  away,  and  a 
million  gallons  of  oil  are  chasing  two  million  gallons 
down  a  mountain-side ! 

Everything  now  depends  upon  the  brakeman  on  the 
forward  section.  He  is  the  only  man  who  can  judge 


212  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

the  danger,  and  signal  the  engineer  what  to  do.  The 
engineer  does  not  even  know  that  anything  is  wrong. 
It  is  plainly  the  brakeman's  business  to  keep  the  front 
half  of  the  train  out  of  the  way  of  the  rear  half.  They 
.must  go  faster,  faster  as  the  runaway  cars  gain  on 
them.  Any  one  can  see  that  it  is  undesirable  to  have 
two  million  gallons  of  oil  struck  by  a  million  gallons 
coming  at  forty  miles  an  hour. 

Yet  the  brakeman  does  the  wrong  thing  (no  man 
can  be  sure  how  he  will  act  in  imminent  peril)  ;  the 
brakeman  signals  the  engineer  to  stop.  Perhaps  he 
planned  a  gradual  slow-up  to  block  the  flying  section 
gently;  perhaps  he  did  not  realize  how  fast  the  runa- 
way was  coming.  Most  likely  he  lost  his  head  en- 
tirely, as  better  men  have  done  in  less  serious  crises. 
At  any  rate,  the  front  section  presently  drew  up  with 
grinding  brakes  on  the  ledge  of  track  that  stretches 
along  the  cheek  of  the  mountain  just  over  the  slope 
where  the  slumbering  village  lay,  not  five  feet  from 
Carling's  warehouse,  beyond  which  were  the  coal- 
yards  and  the  wooden  houses  of  Glen  Gardner,  the 
post-office,  the  hardware  store,  and  the  main  street. 
Of  all  places  for  that  train  to  stop,  this  was  the 
worst. 

It  was  a  matter  of  seconds  now  until  the  crash  came, 
and  on  this  followed  a  shattering  blast  that  shook  the 
valley  and  hill,  and  brought  the  village  to  its  feet  in 
a  daze  of  fear.  Four  oil-cars  were  smashed  in  the 
wreck  and  hurled  across  the  tracks  for  the  rear  cars 
to  pile  up  on.  And  straightway  there  was  a  gushing 
oil-well  here,  out  of  which  in  the  first  ten  seconds  came 
an  explosion  with  the  noise  of  cannon,  that  showered 
burning  oil  over  fields  and  trees  and  shingled  house- 
tops, while  a  fire  column  shot  up  fifty  feet  in  the  air 
and  began  its  fierce  feeding  on  the  broken  tanks.  And 


'SNYDER,    WHITE  AS  A  GHOST,    RACED  AHEAD  OF  THE   FIRE. 


214  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

out  of  this  fire  fountain  came  a  smoking  fire  river,  that 
rolled  down  the  hill  toward  the  village. 

At  this  moment,  Joe  Snyder,  who  had  not  gone  to 
the  dance  the  night  before,  and  was  doomed  now  to 
the  early  worm's  fate,  had  just  put  his  key  in  the  door 
of  the  butcher-shop.  He  never  turned  the  key,  nor 
saw  it  again,  nor  saw  the  butcher-shop  again.  What 
he  did  see  was  a  roaring  torrent  of  oil  sweeping  down 
the  street  and  blazing  fifteen  feet  high  as  it  came. 
And  the  picture  next  presented  when  Snyder,  white 
as  a  ghost,  raced  down  the  sidewalk  ahead  of  the  fire, 
will  stay  long  in  the  memory  of  those  who  saw  it  from 
their  windows. 

But  this  was  no  time  for  looking  at  pictures  out  of 
windows;  there  were  other  things  to  be  done,  and 
done  quickly.  Never  did  fire  descend  so  swiftly  upon 
a  village.  Even  as  the  startled  sleepers  stared  in 
fright,  houses  all  about  them  burst  into  flames  like 
candles  on  a  Christmas  tree.  Now  the  warehouse  is 
burning,  and  the  sheds  across  the  tracks;  and  there 
goes  the  hardware  store;  and  there  goes  the  carpen- 
ter's shop ;  and  now  the  fire-stream  rolls  through  Main 
Street,  and  licks  up  the  Reeves  house  on  one  corner 
and  Vliet's  store  on  the  other.  Then  the  drug-store 
goes,  and  Carling's  store  and  Rinehart's  restaurant. 
Trees  are  burning,  fences  are  burning,  the  very  streets 
are  burning,  and  men  see  fire  rolling  across  their  front 
yards  like  drifting  snow. 

I  do  not  purpose  to  follow  the  incidents  of  this  fire 
and  the  several  explosions,  nor  show  how  the  village 
fought  against  it  vainly,  damming  up  fiery  oil-streams 
and  turning  their  courses,  toiling  at  bucket-lines,  and 
spreading  blistering  walls  with  soaked  carpets.  The 
point  is  that  these  efforts  alone  would  never  have 
availed,  and  Glen  Gardner  would  speedily  have  lain 


2i6  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

in  ashes,  had  not  fire-engines  from  Sommerville  and 
Washington  been  hurried  to  the  spot.  And  even  as  it 
was,  a  section  of  the  village  was  wiped  away  in  clean- 
licked  ruins,  which  stood  for  many  a  day  as  a  grim  re- 
minder that  the  only  safety  against  fires  in  these  times 
lies  in  being  able  to  fight  fires  well. 

Which  brings  me,  of  course,  to  the  modern  fire  de- 
partment and  the  men  who  risk  their  lives  as  a  matter 
of  daily  routine  to  protect  their  fellow-men.  I  will 
begin  with  some  incidents  of  one  particular  fire  that 
happened  in  New  York  on  St.  Patrick's  Day,  1899. 
It  was  a  pleasant  afternoon,  and  Fifth  Avenue  was 
crowded  with  people  gathered  to  watch  the  parade. 
A  gayer,  pleasanter  scene  it  would  have  been  hard  to 
find  at  three  o'clock,  or  a  sadder  one  at  four. 

The  Ancient  Order  of  Hibernians,  coming  along 
with  bands  and  banners,  were  nearing  Forty-sixth 
Street,  when  suddenly  there  sounded  hoarse  shouts  and 
the  angry  clang  of  fire-gongs,  and  down  Forty-sev- 
enth Street  came  Hook  and  Ladder  4  on  a  dead  run, 
and  swung  into  Fifth  Avenue  straight  at  the  pompous 
Hibernians,  who  immediately  became  badly  scared 
Irishmen  and  took  to  their  heels.  But  the  big  ladders 
went  no  farther.  They  were  needed  here,  oh,  so  badly 
needed;  for  the  Windsor  Hotel  was  on  fire — the  fa- 
mous Windsor  Hotel  at  Fifth  Avenue  and  Forty-sev- 
enth Street.  It  was  on  fire,  far  gone  with  fire  before 
ever  the  engines  were  called ;  and  the  reason  was  that 
everybody  supposed  that  of  course  somebody  had  sent 
the  alarm.  And  so  they  all  watched  the  fire,  and 
waited  for  the  engines,  ten,  fifteen  minutes,  and  by  that 
time  a  great  column  of  flame  was  roaring  up  the  ele- 
vator-shaft, and  people  on  the  roof,  in  their  madness, 
were  jumping  down  to  the  street.  Then  some  sane 
citizen  went  to  a  fire-box  and  rang  the  call,  and  within 


THE    FIREMAN  217 

ninety  seconds  Engine  65  was  on  the  ground.  And 
after  her  came  Engines  54  and  21.  But  there  was  no 
making  up  that  lost  fifteen  minutes.  The  fire  had 
things  in  its  teeth  now,  and  three,  four,  five  alarms 
went  out  in  quick  succession.  Twenty-three  engines 
had  their  streams  on  that  fire  in  almost  as  many  min- 
utes. And  the  big  fire-tower  came  from  Thirty-sixth 
Street  and  Ninth  Avenue,  and  six  hook-and-ladder 
companies  came. 

Let  us  watch  Hook  and  Ladder  21  for  a  moment. 
She  was  the  mate  of  the  fire-tower,  and  the  rush  of  her 
galloping  horses  was  echoing  up  the  avenue  just  as 
Battalion  Chief  John  Binns  made  out  a  woman  in  a 
seventh-story  window  on  the  Forty-sixth  Street  side, 
where  the  fire  was  raging  fiercely.  The  woman  was 
holding  a  little  dog  in  her  arms,  and  it  looked  as  if  she 
was  going  to  jump.  The  chief  waved  her  to  stay 
where  she  was,  and,  running  toward  2 1  as  she  plunged 
along,  motioned  toward  Forty-sixth  Street.  Where- 
upon the  tiller-man  at  his  back  wheel  did  a  pretty  piece 
of  steering,  and  even  as  they  swung  the  long  truck 
in  the  turn  the  crew  began  hoisting  the  big  ladder. 
Such  a  thing  is  never  done,  for  the  swaying  of  that 
ten-ton  mass  might  easily  upset  the  truck;  but  every 
second  counted  here,  and  they  took  the  chance. 

As  they  drew  along  the  curb,  Fireman  McDermott 
sprang  up  the  slowly  rising  ladder,  and  two  men  came 
behind  with  scaling-ladders,  for  they  saw  that  the 
main  ladder  would  never  reach  the  woman.  Five 
stories  is  what  it  did  reach,  and  then  McDermott, 
standing  on  the  top  round,  smashed  one  of  the  scaling- 
ladders  through  a  sixth-story  window,  and  climbed  on, 
smashed  the  second  scaling-ladder  through  a  seventh- 
story  window,  and  five  seconds  later  had  the  woman  in 
his  arms. 


USE   OK   THE   SCALING    LADDERS. 


THE   FIREMAN  219 

To  carry  a  woman  down  the  front  of  a  burning 
building  on  scaling-ladders  is  a  matter  of  regular  rout- 
ine for  a  fireman,  like  jumping  from  a  fourth  story 
down  to  a  net,  or  making  a  bridge  of  his  body.  It  is 
part  of  the  business.  But  to  have  one  foot  in  the  air 
reaching  for  the  lower  rung  of  a  swaying,  flimsy  thing, 
and  to  feel  another  rung  break  under  you  and  your 
struggling  burden,  and  to  fall  two  feet  and  catch 
safely,  that  is  a  thing  not  every  fireman  could  do;  but 
McDermott  did  it,  and  he  brought  the  woman  un- 
harmed to  the  ground — and  the  dog,  too. 

Almost  at  the  same  moment,  the  crowd  on  Forty- 
seventh  Street  thrilled  in  admiration  of  a  rescue  feat 
even  more  perilous.  On  the  roof,  screaming  in  ter- 
ror, was  Kate  Flannigan,  a  servant,  swaying  over  the 
cornice,  on  the  point  of  throwing  herself  down.  Then 
out  of  a  top-floor  window  crept  a  little  fireman,  and 
stood  on  the  fire-escape,  gasping  for  air.  Then  he 
reached  in  and  dragged  out  an  unconscious  woman 
and  lowered  her  to  others,  and  was  just  starting  down 
himself  when  yells  from  the  street  made  him  look  up, 
and  he  saw  Kate  Flannigan.  She  was  ten  feet  above 
him,  and  he  had  no  means  of  reaching  her. 

The  crowd  watched  anxiously,  and  saw  the  little 
fireman  lean  back  over  the  fire-escape,  saw  him  motion 
and  shout  something  to  the  woman.  And  then  she 
crept  over  the  cornice  edge,  hung  by  her  hands  for  a 
second,  and  dropped  into  the  fireman's  arms.  It  is  n't 
every  big  strong  man  who  could  catch  a  sizable  woman 
in  a  fall  like  that  and  hold  her,  but  this  stripling  did 
it,  because  he  had  the  nerve  and  knew  how.  And  that 
made  another  life  saved. 

By  this  time  flames  were  breaking  out  of  every 
story  from  street  to  roof.  It  seemed  impossible  to  go 
on  with  the  rescue  work;  yet  the  men  persisted,  even 


220  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

on  the  Fifth  Avenue  front,  bare  of  fire-escapes.  They 
used  the  long  extension  ladders  as  far  as  they  could, 
and  then  "scaled  it"  from  window  to  window.  Here 
it  was  that  William  Clark  of  Hook  and  Ladder  7  made 
the  rescues  that  gave  him  the  Bennett  medal — took 
three  women  out  of  seventh-story  windows  when  it 
was  like  climbing  over  furnace  mouths  to  get  there. 
And  one  of  these  women  he  reached  only  by  working 
his  way  along  narrow  stone  ledges  for  three  windows, 
and  back  the  same  way  to  his  ladder  with  the  woman 
on  his  shoulders.  Even  so  it  is  likely  he  would  have 
failed  in  this  last  effort  had  not  Edward  Ford  come 
part  way  along  the  ledges  to  meet  and  help  him. 

Meantime  Fireman  Kennedy  of  Engine  23  had  res- 
cued an  old  lady  from  the  sixth  floor;  and  Joseph 
Kratchovil  of  Hook  and  Ladder  2  had  carried  out 
Mrs.  Leland,  wife  of  the  proprietor,  from  deadly  peril 
on  the  fifth  floor ;  and  Frank  Tissier  of  Hook  and  Lad- 
der 4  had  found  a  family  named  Wells — father, 
mother,  and  daughter — in  a  blazing  room,  and  borne 
them  out,  with  his  own  clothes  burning,  to  the  arms  of 
Brennan  and  Sweeney,  who  were  waiting  for  him  in 
a  fury  of  fire  at  the  top  of  the  eighty-five-foot  exten- 
sion ladder. 

And  Andrew  Fitzgerald,  also  of  Hook  and  Ladder 
4,  but  off  on  sick-leave  with  pneumonia,  had  shown 
the  true  fireman  spirit  as  he  came  from  the  doctors. 
His  instructions  were  to  go  home  and  stay  there.  He 
was  not  on  duty  at  all.  He  was  scarcely  strong  enough 
to  be  out  of  bed,  but  when  he  heard  that  there  were 
lives  in  peril  down  the  avenue  he  forgot  everything, 
and  ran  to  the  place  of  danger.  There  was  need  of 
him  here,  and,  sick-leave  or  not,  pneumonia  or  not,  he 
would  do  what  he  could.  What  he  did  was  to  carry 
out  the  last  ones  taken  alive  from  the  ill-fated  hotel — 


THE    FIREMAN  221 

three  women  whom  he  bore  in  his  arms  from  the  fourth 
floor  through  roaring  hallways,  then  up  a  fire-escape, 
then  back  into  the  building,  with  the  flames  singeing 
him,  and  a  shattering  blast  of  exploding  gas  pursuing 
him,  and  finally  out  on  a  balcony  whence,  with  the 
help  of  Policeman  Harrigan,  he  got  them  over  safely 
to  an  adjoining  housetop.  No  wonder  the  Bonner 
medal  was  awarded  him  later  for  conspicuous  courage. 


II 


WHAT    BILL    BROWN    DID    IN    THE    GREAT 
TARRANT    FIRE 

THE  great  test  for  Fire-engine  29  and  her  crew,  the 
test  of  life  or  death  that  firemen  wait  years  for 
(to  see  what  stuff  is  in  them),  came  of  a  mild  autumn 
afternoon,  not  soon  to  be  forgotten  by  men  who  lunch 
down  City  Hall  way,  by  men  who  swarm  in  the  stone 
hives  of  Chambers  Street  and  Greenwich  Street  and 
Washington  Street.  This  was  the  day  when  inno- 
cent, wholesome  chlorate  of  potash  (excellent  for 
colds)  showed  what  it  can  do  when  you  take  it  by  the 
ton  with  a  pinch  of  fire.  This  was  the  day  of  the 
great  explosions,  when  it  rained  red-hot  stones  and 
blazing  timbers,  when  whole  blocks  of  lower  Manhat- 
tan shivered  with  the  concussion.  This  was  Tarrant's 
day,  October  29,  1900. 

It  all  started  smoothly  enough,  with  brass  gongs 
tapping  out  deliberate  62'$,  at  which  the  big  horses 
in  most  engine-houses  stamped  their  displeasure,  for 
62  meant  nothing  to  them — at  least  not  on  the  first  call. 
But  it  was  great  business  for  Harry  and  Nigger  and 
Baby,  the  two  blacks  and  the  gray  that  pull  old  29,  and 
there  they  were  at  the  first  tap,  breasting  the  rubber- 
bound  stall  chains  as  if  to  hurry  up  laggard  electricity, 
which  presently  shot  its  sparks  and  loosed  their  fas- 
tenings. 

Now,  down  drop  the  stall  chains,  and  the  horses, 
pounding  over  the  tiles,  crowd  up  three  abreast  ahead 


THE    FIREMAN  223 

of  the  engine.  Down  drop  the  crew,  silently,  swiftly, 
sliding  from  ceiling  to  floor  like  so  many  blue-shirted 
ghosts.  And  click,  click,  its  traces  up  and  collars  off 
the  frames,  and  snap,  snap,  until  the  last  hook  holds. 

"H'm,"  says  Baby,  as  the  thick  wheels  start,  "six 
seconds ;  might  have  been  worse." 

"We  '11  strike  the  curb  in  eight  and  a  half!"  snorts 
Nigger,  as  the  doors  swing  wide  and  they  bang  into 
Chambers  Street. 

Out  into  Chambers  Street  they  go,  with  Johnnie 
Marks  driving  and  Bill  Brown  jamming  blazing  waste 
into  her  fire-box,  where  wood  and  oil  do  the  rest. 
On  the  back  steps  rides  Captain  Devanny,  steadying 
himself  by  the  coal-box,  scowling  under  his  helmet, 
and  jerking  fast  on  the  alarm-cord  as  they  swing  into 
Greenwich  Street.  There  is  the  fire  just  ahead,  cor- 
ner of  Warren  Street,  nasty  black  smoke  choking 
back  the  crowd.  And  here  comes  the  hose-wagon, 
clanging  and  rumbling  at  their  heels. 

"It  's  first  water  for  us,  Bill,"  said  Devanny. 

"There  's  drugs  and  stuff  in  there,"  said  Bill. 

Then  they  fell  to  work — as  firemen  do. 

"When  the  first  explosion  came,"  said  Captain  De- 
vanny, telling  the  story  weeks  afterward,  "I  was  in- 
side the  building,  up  one  flight,  at  the  bottom  of  a 
well  of  fire.  McArthur  and  Buckley  were  with  me, 
playing  a  stiff  stream  to  protect  -  the  back  windows. 
There  's  where  people  in  the  building  had  to  run  to, 
men  and  girls ;  we  could  see  'em  crowding  on  the  bal- 
conies over  Bishop's  Alley,  and  we  wanted  to  give  'em 
a  chance  on  the  fire-escapes.  You  see,  a  red-hot  lad- 
der is  n't  much  use  to  anybody. 

"Well,  they  got  down,  every  soul  of  'em,  but  by 
that  time  big  chunks  of  fire  were  dropping  all  around 
us,  and  our  helmets  were  crumpling  and  our  clothes 


A  HOT  PLACE. 


THE  FIREMAN  225 

were  burning.  Besides  that,  we  kept  hearing  little  ex- 
plosions overhead,  louder  than  the  fire  crackle,  louder 
than  pistol  shots,  and  when  you  hear  those  .in  a  drug- 
house  you  don't  feel  any  too  good.  I  went  to  the 
front,  and  saw  fire  breaking  out  everywhere  on  the 
fourth  and  fifth  floors.  Then  I  knew  it  was  all  up, 
and  ran  back  to  order  the  boys  out.  On  the  stairs  I 
met  Gillon,  and  was  just  yelling,  'Save  yourselves !' 
when  the  crash  came.  It  was  like  cannon,  sir,  and 
sounded  bzzzzzzzz  in  my  ears  for  a  long  time,  as  I 
lay  in  the  wreck,  with  tongues  of  blue  flames  licking 
down  over  me.  I  'd  been  blown  clean  off  the  second- 
floor  landing  and  dropped  in  the  hallway,  twenty  feet 
back  from  the  door.  McArthur  and  Gillon  were  down 
the  elevator  shaft,  where  they  'd  jumped.  Nobody 
dared  lift  a  head,  for  a  cyclone  of  fire  was  all  over  us." 
It  is  not  my  purpose  to  detail  the  sufferings  and 
final  rescue  of  these  flame-bound  men.  They  had 
some  vivid  glimpses  of  death  and  some  cruel  burns,  but 
firemen  count  these  nothing,  nor  is  McArthur's  act  in 
turning  back  through  fire  to  save  a  fallen  comrade 
(Merron)  more  than  ordinary  fireman's  pluck,  nor  is 
Devanny's  experience  when  caught  in  the  second  ex- 
plosion and  blown  through  a  shop  on  Washington 
Street  more  than  an  ordinary  hazard  of  the  business. 
Indeed,  this  Tarrant  fire  should  have  but  little  of  my 
attention  were  there  not  something  in  it  beyond  noise 
and  house-smashing.  There  was  this  thing  in  it,  over- 
looked by  newspaper  reports,  yet  vastly  important, 
the  behavior  of  Bill  Brown,  to  whom,  as  a  represen- 
tative, one  may  say,  of  engine  crew  29,  came  the  great 
test  I  spoke  of,  the  rare  test  which  nothing  but  the 
highest  courage  can  satisfy.  All  firemen  have  cour- 
age, but  it  cannot  be  known  until  the  test  how  many 
have  this  particular  kind — Bill  Brown's  kind. 


226  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

And  the  odd  part  of  it  is  that  what  he  did  seems  a 
little  thing,  and  it  took  only  a  minute  to  do,  and  it 
saved  no  life  and  made  no  difference  whatever  in  the 
outcome  of  the  fire,  yet  to  the  few  who  know — or 
care — it  stands  in  the  memories  of  the  department  as 
a  fine  and  unusual  bit  of  heroism. 

What  happened  was  this :  Engine  29,  pumping  and 
pounding  her  prettiest,  stood  at  the  northwest  corner 
of  Greenwich  and  Warren  streets,  so  close  to  the  blaz- 
ing drug-house  that  Driver  Marks  thought  it  was  n't 
safe  there  for  the  three  horses,  and  led  them  away. 
That  was  fortunate,  but  it  left  Brown  alone,  right 
against  the  cheek  of  the  fire,  watching  his  boiler,  stok- 
ing in  coal,  keeping  his  steam-gage  at  75.  As  the  fire 
gained  chunks  of  red-hot  sandstone  began  to  smash 
down  on  the  engine.  Brown  ran  his  pressure  up  to 
80,  and  watched  the  door  anxiously  where  the  boys 
had  gone  in. 

Then  the  explosion  came,  and  a  blue  flame,  wide  as 
a  house,  curled  its  tongues  half-way  across  the  street, 
enwrapping  engine  and  man,  setting  fire  to  the  ele- 
vated railway  station  overhead,  or  such  wreck  of  it 
as  the  shock  had  left.  Bill  Brown  stood  by  his  engine, 
with  a  wall  of  fire  before  him  and  a  sheet  of  fire  above 
him.  He  heard  quick  footsteps  on  the  pavements,  and 
voices,  that  grew  fainter  and  fainter,  crying :  "Run  for 
your  lives!"  He  heard  the  hose-wagon  horses  some- 
where back  in  the  smoke  go  plunging  away,  mad  with 
fright  and  their  burns.  He  was  alone  with  the  fire, 
and  the  skin  was  hanging  in  shreds  on  his  hands,  face, 
and  neck.  Only  a  fireman  knows  how  one  blast  of 
flame  can  shrivel  up  a  man,  and  the  pain  over  the 
bared  surfaces  was — well,  there  is  no  pain  worse  than 
that  of  fire  scorching  in  upon  the  quick  flesh  seared 
by  fire. 


THE  FIREMAN  227 

Here,  I  think,  was  a  crisis  to  make  a  very  brave  man 
quail.  Bill  Brown  knew  perfectly  well  why  every  one 
was  running;  there  was  going  to  be  another  explosion 
in  a  couple  of  minutes,  maybe  sooner,  out  of  this  hell 
in  front  of  him.  And  the  order  had  come  for  every 
man  to  save  himself,  and  every  man  had  done  it,  ex- 
cept the  lads  inside.  And  the  question  was,  Should  he 
run  or  should  he  stay  and  die?  It  was  tolerably  cer- 
tain that  he  would  die  if  he  stayed.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  boys  of  old  29  were  in  there.  Devanny  and 
McArthur,  and  Gillon  and  Merron,  his  friends,  his 
chums :  he  'd  seen  them  drag  the  hose  in  through  that 
door — there  it  was  now,  a  long,  throbbing  snake  of  it 
— and  they  had  n't  come  out.  Perhaps  they  were 
dead.  Yes,  but  perhaps  they  were  n't.  If  they  were 
alive,  they  needed  water  now  more  than  they  ever 
needed  anything  before.  And  they  could  n't  get  water 
if  he  quit  his  engine. 

Bill  Brown  pondered  this  a  long  time,  perhaps  four 
seconds;  then  he  fell  to  stoking  in  coal,  and  he 
screwed  her  up  another  notch,  and  he  eased  her  run- 
ning parts  with  the  oiler.  Explosion  or  not,  pain  or 
not,  alone  or  not,  he  was  going  to  stay  and  make  that 
engine  hum.  He  had  done  the  greatest  thing  a  man 
can  do — had  offered  his  life  for  his  friends. 

It  is  pleasant  to  know  that  this  sacrifice  was  averted. 
A  quarter  of  a  minute  or  so  before  the  second  and  ter- 
rible explosion,  Devanny  and  his  men  came  staggering 
from  the  building.  Then  it  was  that  Merron  fell,  and 
McArthur  checked  his  flight  to  save  him.  Then  it 
was,  but  not  until  then,  that  Bill  Brown  left  Engine 
29  to  her  fate  (she  was  crushed  by  the  falling  walls), 
and  ran  for  his  life  with  his  comrades.  He  had 
waited  for  them,  he  had  stood  the  great  test. 

It   were   easy   to   multiply   stories   of   the   firemen, 


228  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

stories  of  the  captains,  stories  of  the  chiefs — there  is 
no  end  to  them.  However  many  may  be  told  or  writ- 
ten, they  are  but  fragments  of  fragments.  New  York 
has  one  hundred  and  thirty-six  engine  companies, 
forty  hook-and-ladder  companies,  besides  the  volun- 
teers on  Staten  Island,  and  there  is  not  one  of  these 
but  has  its  proud  record  of  courage  and  self-sacrifice. 
Other  lives  show  bravery  for  gain,  bravery  for  show, 
bravery  for  sport;  these  show  bravery  for  the  public 
good  and  for  no  other  reason — unselfish  bravery. 
Think  what  the  firemen  do!  They  give  up  regular 
sleep,  they  give  up  home  life,  they  bear  every  expo- 
sure, they  face  death  in  many  forms  as  a  matter  of 
daily  routine,  they  never  refuse  an  order,  lead  where  it 
may  (such  a  case  is  practically  unknown),  and  they  do 
all  this  for  modest  pay  and  scant  glory.  Three  or  four 
dollars  a  day  will  cover  their  earnings,  and  as  for  the 
glory,  what  is  it?  For  some  a  medal,  a  tattered  paper 
with  roll-of-honor  mention,  a  picture  in  the  newspa- 
pers ;  for  most  of  them  nothing.  Yet  they  are  cheerful, 
happy  men.  Why  ?  I  have  wondered  about  this. 

Shall  we  think  of  firemen  as  braver  than  other  men, 
as  finer  or  more  devoted  ?  No  and  yes.  I  should  say 
that  most  of  them,  to  start  with,  had  no  such  supe- 
riority, but  came  into  the  department  (usually  by  op- 
portunity or  drift)  out  of  unpromising  conditions, 
came  in  quite  as  selfish  and  timorous,  quite  as  human 
as  the  ordinary  citizens.  And  the  life  did  the  rest. 
The  life  changed  them,  made  them  braver  and  better. 
Why?  Because  it  is  a  brave,  unselfish  life,  and  no 
man  can  resist  it.  Put  a  convict  in  the  fire  department 
and  he  will  become  an  honest  man — or  leave.  It  's 
like  changing  scamps  into  heroes  on  the  battle-field, 
only  these  battles  of  hose  and  ax  are  all  righteous  bat- 
tles to  save  life,  to  avert  loss  and  suffering.  In  the 


THE  FIREMAN  229 

whole  business  of  fighting  fires  there  is  no  place  for  a 
mean  or  a  base  motive,  and  can  be  none.  Therefore, 
meanness  and  baseness  go  out  of  fashion  just  as  whin- 
ing goes  out  of  fashion  on  a  football  team.  It  's  the 
fashion  among  firemen  to  do  fine  things. 

Let  me  give  a  further  instance  to  show  what  this  fire 
department  fashion  does  for  men  at  the  very  top — for 
battalion  chiefs  and  deputy  chiefs  and  the  chief  him- 
self. It  swings  them  into  line  like  men  in  the  ranks. 
With  the  chance  to  work  less,  they  find  themselves 
working  harder.  With  orders  to  take  from  no  one, 
they  assume  voluntarily  a  severer  duty  than  any  man 
would  put  upon  them.  And  this  even  if  power  has 
come  through  the  way  of  politics,  through  influence 
or  scheming.  Let  the  most  spoils-soaked  veteran  be- 
come chief  of  a  city  fire  department  and  I  believe  we 
should  see  him,  in  spite  of  himself,  forgetting  his 
pocket-stuffing  principles,  and  seeking  the  heroic  goal, 
though  it  kill  him.  Which  it  probably  would.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  New  York  has  never  had  a  chief  who 
did  not  work  harder  than  his  men,  and  spare  himself 
less  than  he  spared  his  men. 

Take  our  present  chief,  Edward  F.  Croker,  the 
youngest  man  who  ever  held  this  place.  Let  me  run 
over  his  twenty-four  hours,  from  eight  in  the  evening, 
when  he  goes  on  night  duty  at  the  Great  Jones  Street 
engine-house.  From  now  until  daylight  he  will  cover 
personally  some  two  hundred  stations  on  the  first  alarm 
— that  is,  everything  from  Twenty-third  Street  to  the 
Battery,  the  region  of  greatest  danger.  And  on  the 
second  or  third  alarm  he  will  cover  the  whole  of  Man- 
hattan Island.  That  means  answering  every  night 
from  two  to  a  dozen  calls  scattered  over  a  great  area. 
It  means  a  pair  of  horses  (Dan  and  John,  usually) 
and  driver  clean  worn  out  when  morning  comes.  And 


230  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

it  means  to  the  chief,  besides  physical  fatigue,  an  ex- 
hausting responsibility  in  quickly  judging  each  fire 
and  outlining  the  way  of  fighting  it. 

Almost  a  day's  work  this,  one  would  say,  but  it  is 
only  a  beginning.  However  broken  his  rest,  the  chief 
is  up  at  seven  in  the  morning — and  note  that  what  sleep 
he  gets,  three,  four,  five  hours,  is  at  an  engine-house, 
not  at  his  home — and  by  nine  he  is  at  headquarters,  in 
Sixty-seventh  Street,  ready  for  a  hard  morning  trans- 
acting business  for  the  department,  doing  as  much 
work  as  a  merchant  in  his  counting-room.  This  until 
one  o'clock. 

Then  no  luncheon  (all  fire  chiefs  are  two-meal  men), 
but  off  for  a  four-hours'  spin  behind  Kitty  and  Belle, 
his  daylight  team,  driving  from  station  to  station  for 
the  work  of  inspection,  holding  the  reins  himself  for 
arm  exercise,  seeing  with  his  own  eyes  how  the  work 
is  going,  holding  every  man  to  his  duty.  Studying 
the  city,  too,  as  he  goes  about,  noting  its  growth  and 
changes  from  the  view-point  of  a  fire  expert,  detecting 
weak  points,  bad  streets,  defective  structures,  fixing  in 
mind  the  danger  spots,  here  oil,  there  lumber,  yonder 
paint  or  chemicals,  and  planning  always  for  the  de- 
fense. 

After  this  inspection  tour  comes  the  only  time  in  the 
day  when  the  chief  is  not  on  duty,  an  hour  and  a  half 
or  two  hours,  when  he  gets  a  glimpse  of  his  family  and 
eats  his  dinner.  Even  then  the  fire  buggy  waits  out- 
side, and  many  a  time  this  brief  home  stay  is  cut  short 
and  off  goes  the  chief,  dropping  knife  and  fork,  to 
answer  a  third  alarm.  There  is  some  perversity  about 
fires,  so  his  wife  and  children  think,  that  makes  more 
of  them  start  between  six  and  eight  in  the  evening 
(this  is  really  a  fact)  than  at  any  other  period  of 
the  day. 


232  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

So  here  we  have  a  chief  who  actually  holds  himself 
ready  for  hardest  service  twenty-two  hours  in  every 
twenty-four,  who  seldom  knows  a  night's  unbroken 
rest,  who  never  takes  a  day  off — not  even  Sundays  or 
holidays,  but  uses  these  for  longer  inspection  tours, 
driving  forty  or  fifty  miles  of  a  Christmas  day  over 
Long  Island  or  out  into  Queens  County,  or  up  through 
the  Westchester  region. 

And  he  is  never  ill,  and  he  never  complains ! 

To  watch  the  chief  at  a  big  fire  is  a  thing  worth 
doing,  though  not  easy  to  do,  for  he  moves  about  con- 
stantly, up-stairs  and  down-stairs,  from  roof  to  roof, 
from  engine  to  engine,  in  danger  like  his  men,  not 
sending  his  orders  merely,  but  following  after  to  ob- 
serve their  execution.  "I  expect  each  of  my  captains," 
he  told  me  one  day,  "to  know  the  location  and  general 
condition  of  every  alleyway,  every  stairway,  every 
hydrant,  every  fire-escape  in  his  section.  When  I  get  to 
a  fire  the  captain  must  tell  me  what  I  want  to  know, 
and  do  it  quick.  Will  we  find  water  in  there  behind 
the  smoke?  Is  there  a  back  door  at  the  end  of  that 
passage?  How  about  the  balconies?  Where  does 
this  lane  between  the  houses  come  out  ?  And  a  dozen 
other  things.  If  you  want  to  fight  fires  well  you  must 
know  the  ground  as  if  you  lived  on  it." 


Ill 


HERE    WE    VISIT    AN    ENGINE-HOUSE    AT    NIGHT 
AND    CHAT    WITH    THE    DRIVER 

r INHERE  is  something  strange  and  solemn  about  an 
A  engine-house  at  night,  like  the  stillness  of  a 
church  or  the  hush  of  a  drowsing  menagerie.  You 
are  rilled  with  a  sense  of  impending  danger,  which  is 
symbolized  everywhere :  in  the  boots  ranged  at  bunk- 
sides  of  sighing  sleepers,  in  the  brass  columns,  smooth 
as  glass,  that  reach  up  through  manholes  in  the  floor, 
and  at  which  the  fire  crew  leap,  half  drunk  with  fa- 
tigue; in  the  engine,  purring  at  the  double  doors 
(steam  always  at  25  in  the  boiler),  with  tongues  and 
harness  lifted  for  the  spring;  in  the  big  gong  which 
watches  under  the  clock  (and  the  clock  watches,  too), 
a  tireless  yellow  eye,  that  seems  to  be  ever  saying, 
"Shall  I  strike?  Shall  I  strike?"  And  the  clock  ticks 
back,  "Wait,  wait,"  or  "Now,  now."  That  is  what 
you  feel  chiefly  in  an  engine-house  at  night — the  in- 
tense, quiet  watchfulness.  Even  the  horses  seem  to  be 
watching  with  the  corner  of  an  eye  as  they  munch 
their  feed. 

I  counsel  a  man,  perhaps  a  woman,  weary  of  the 
old  evening  things,  the  stupid  show,  the  trivial  talk, 
the  laughter  without  mirth,  the  suppers  without  nour- 
ishment, to  try  an  hour  or  two  at  an  engine-house,  mak- 
ing friends  with  the  fireman  on  guard  (it  may  be  the 
driver  of  a  chief,  as  happened  to  me),  and  see  if  he 
does  n't  walk  back  home  with  a  gladder  heart  and  a 

233 


A  RESCUE  FROM  A  FIFTH   STORY. 


THE    FIREMAN  235 

better  opinion  of  his  fellows.  I  fancy  some  of  our  re- 
formers, even,  might  visit  an  engine-house  with  profit, 
and  learn  to  dwell  occasionally  on  the  good  that  is  in 
our  cities  and  learn  something  about  fighting  without 
bluster  and  without  ever  letting  up. 

It  was  a  tall,  loose-jointed  fellow  I  met  at  the  Elm 
Street  station,  a  typical  down-easter,  who  had  wan- 
dered over  the  world  and  finally  settled  down  as  driver 
of  the  nervous  little  wagon  that  carries  Chief  Ahearn, 
a  daring  man  and  famous,  in  his  dashes  from  fire  to  fire 
over  the  city.  In  these  days  of  idol-breaking  it  is  good 
to  see  such  hero  worship  as  one  finds  here  for  all 
men  who  deserve  it,  whether  in  humble  station  or  near 
the  top,  like  this  wiry  little  chief,  asleep  now  up-stairs 
against  the  night's  emergencies.  Ask  any  fireman  in 
New  York  to  tell  you  about  Ahearn,  and  you  '11  find 
there  is  one  business  where  jealousy  does  n't  rule. 
Ahearn?  What  do  they  think  of  Ahearn?  Why, 
he  's  a  wonder,  sir;  he  's  the  dandiest  man.  Say,  did 
ye  ever  hear  how  he  crawled  under  that  blazing  naph- 
tha tank  and  got  a  man  out  who  was  in  there  uncon- 
scious? They  gave  him  the  Bennett  medal  for  that. 
And  d'  ye  know  about  the  rescue  he  made  up  in  Wil- 
liamsbridge,  when  that  barrel  of  kerosene  exploded? 
Oh,  but  the  prettiest  thing  Ahearn  ever  did  was — 
Then  each  man  will  tell  you  a  different  thing. 

The  driver's  favorite  story  was  of  the  night  when 
Ahearn  ran  back  into  a  burning  tenement  on  Delancey 
Street,  "where  nobody  had  any  business  to  go,  sir,  the 
fire  was  that  fierce."  It  was  fine  to  see  his  face  light 
up  as  he  told  what  his  chief  did  on  this  occasion,  and 
the  whole  quiet  engine-house  seemed  to  throb  with 
pride. 

"You  see,"  he  went  on,  "there  was  a  half -crazy 
mother  screaming  around  that  her  baby  was  in  the 


236  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

building.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  baby  was  all  right 
— some  neighbors  had  it — but  the  mother  did  n't  know 
that,  and  the  chief  did  n't  know  it,  either.  He  was 
chief  of  the  4th  Battalion  then ;  now  he  's  deputy  chief 
—been  promoted,  y'  know.  Chief  or  not  did  n't  cut 
any  ice  with  him,  and  he  just  wrapped  a  coat  around 
his  head  and  went  in.  He  got  to  the  room  all  right 
where  the  woman  said  her  baby  was,  and  it  was  like  a 
furnace;  so  he  did  the  only  thing  a  man  can  do — got 
down  low  on  his  hands  and  knees  and  worked  along 
toward  the  bed,  with  his  mouth  against  the  floor,  suck- 
ing in  air.  He  went  through  fire,  sir,  that  nearly 
burned  his  head  off — it  did  burn  off  the  rims  of  his 
ears — but  he  got  to  that  bed  somehow,  and  then  he 
found  he  'd  clone  it  all  for  nothing.  There  was  n't 
any  baby  there  to  save. 

"But  there  was  a  chief  to  save  now.  He  was  about 
gone  when  he  got  back  to  the  door,  and  there  he  found 
that  a  spring-lock  had  snapped  shut  on  him,  and  he 
was  a  prisoner,  sir — a  prisoner  in  a  stove.  He  did  n't 
have  any  strength  left,  poor  old  chief;  he  could  n't 
breathe,  let  alone  batter  down  doors,  and  we  'd  had 
some  choice  mourning  around  here  inside  of  a  minute 
if  the  lads  of  Hook  and  Ladder  18  had  n't  smashed 
in  after  him.  They  thought  he  'd  looked  for  that  baby 
about  long  enough.  The  last  thing  he  did  was  to  kick 
his  foot  through  a  panel,  and  they  found  him  there  un- 
conscious, with  his  rubber  boot  sticking  out  into  the 
hall. 

"Tell  ye  another  thing  the  chief  did,"  continued  the 
driver.  "He  rescued  a  husband  and  wife  in  the  Hotel 
Jefferson,  out  of  a  seventh-story  window,  when  the 
whole  business  was  roaring  with  fire.  That  's  only 
about  a  month  ago ;  it  was  a  mighty  sad  case.  We  had 
three  people  to  save,  if  we  could,  and  two  of  'em  sick — 


THE   FIREMAN  237 

the  husband  and  wife — and  the  third  was  a  trained 
nurse  taking  care  of  'em.  Shows  how  people  get  rat- 
tled in  a  fire.  Why,  if  they  'd  only  kept  their  hall 
door  shut — well,  they  did  n't,  and  there  they  were,  all 
three  at  the  window,  without  hardly  any  clothes  on, 
and  the  flames  close  behind  'em. 

"We  got  up  on  the  top  floor  of  the  Union  Square 
Hotel,  the  chief  and  I,  about  ten  feet  away  along  the 
same  wall,  and  by  leaning  out  of  our  windows  we 
could  tell  'em  what  to  do.  It  was  a  case  of  ropes 
and  swing  across  to  us,  but  it  is  n't  every  man  can 
make  a  rope  fast  right  when  a  fire  is  hurrying  him,  es- 
pecially a  sick  man,  or  mebbe  it  was  a  poor  rope  he  had. 
Anyhow,  when  the  nurse  came  out  of  that  window, 
you  might  say  tumbled  out  (you  see,  they  made  her 
go  first),  she  just  fell  like  that  much  dead  weight, 
scared,  you  know,  and  when  the  rope  tightened  it 
snapped,  and  down  she  went,  seven  stories — killed  her 
bang. 

"The  chief  saw  that  would  never  do,  so  we  went  up 
on  the  roof  and  threw  over  more  rope.  It  was  clothes- 
line, the  only  thing  handy,  but  I  doubled  it  to  make 
sure.  And  with  that  we  got  the  husband  and  wife 
across  all  safe,  for  now,  you  see,  we  could  lift  'em 
out  easy,  without  such  a  terrible  jerk  on  the  rope. 
That  was  the  chief's  idea." 

"Yes,"  said  I,  "but  you  helped.  What  's  your 
name?" 

"No,  no,"  he  smiled;  "never  mind  me.  I  'm  no- 
body. Let  the  chief  have  it  all."  And  then  he  went 
on  with  the  story,  which  interested  me  mainly  as  show- 
ing the  kind  of  loyalty  one  finds  among  these  firemen. 
Each  man  will  tell  of  another  man's  achievements,  not 
of  his  own.  You  could  never  find  out  what  Bill 
Brown  did  from  Brown  himself. 


238  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

The  clock  ticked  on,  some  service  calls  rang  on  the 
telephone,  and  once  the  driver  bounded  up  in  the  mid- 
dle of  a  word  and  stood  with  coat  half  off,  in  strained 
attention,  counting  the  strokes  of  the  gong.  No,  it 
was  n't  for  them.  They  'd  go,  though,  on  the  second 
call.  Second  calls  usually  came  within  twenty  min- 
utes of  the  first,  so  we  'd  soon  see.  Meantime,  he  told 
me  about  a  fireman  known  as  "Crazy"  Banta. 

"Talk  about  daredevils!"  said  he,  "this  man  Banta 
beat  the  town.  Why,  I  Ve  known  him  to  go  up  on  a 
house  with  a  line  of  men  where  they  had  to  cross  the 
ridge  of  a  slate  roof — you  know,  where  the  two  sides 
slant  up  to  a  point.  Well,  the  other  men  would  strad- 
dle along  careful,  one  leg  on  each  side,  but  when  Banta 
came  he''d  walk  across  straight  up,  just  like  he  was 
down  on  the  street.  That  's  why  we  called  him 
'Crazy' — he  'd  do  such  crazy  things. 

"And  funny?  Well,  sir,  he  'd  swaller  quarters  as 
fast  as  you  'd  give  'em  to  him,  and  let  you  punch  him 
in  the  stomach  and  hear  'em  rattle  around.  Then  he  'd 
light  a  match,  open  his  mouth,  put  the  match  'way  in- 
side, and  let  you  watch  the  quarters  come  up  again. 
Had  a  double  stomach,  or  something.  He  could  swal- 
ler canes,  too,  same  as  a  circus  man.  Said  he  'd 
learned  all  his  tricks  over  in  India,  but  some  of  the 
boys  thought  he  lied.  They  said  he  'd  prob'ly  trav- 
eled with  some  show.  He  used  to  tell  us  how  he  could 
speak  Burmese  and  Siamese  and  Hindu,  all  those  lin- 
goes, just  perfect;  so  one  day  a  battalion  chief  called 
his  bluff  when  there  were  a  lot  of  emigrants  from 
those  parts  down  at  the  Battery,  and  blamed  if  Banta 
did  n't  chin  away  to  the  whole  crowd  of  'em;  you  'd 
thought  he  was  their  long-lost  brother.  Was  he  a 
foreigner?  No,  sir;  he  was  born  in  Hohokus,  N.  J. 

"But  the  time  Banta  fixed  his  reputation  all  right 


THE    FIREMAN 


239 


was  at  a  fire  in  Pell  Street — some  factory.  After  that 
he  might  have  told  us  he  could  fly  or  eat  glass  or  any 
old  thing,  and  we  'd  have  believed  him.  Tell  ye  what 
he  did.  This  factory  all  smashed  in  after  she  'd 
burned  a  while,  and  one  of  the  boys — Dave  Soden — 
got  wedgejd  under  the  second  floor,  with  all  the  other 
floors  piled  on  top  of  him.  It  was  a  great  big  criss- 
cross of  timbers,  with  Dave  at  the  bottom,  and  the 
flames  eating  in  fast.  We  could  see  the  whole  thing 
was  going  to  make  a  fine  bonfire  in  about  three  min- 
utes, and  it  looked  as  if  Dave  would  be  in  it 


24o  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

"You  understand,  we  did  n't  dare  pry  up  the  tim- 
bers, for  that  would  have  brought  the  whole  factory 
down  on  Dave  and  killed  him  plumb.  And  we 
could  n't  begin  at  the  top  and  throw  of!  the  timbers, 
for  there  was  n't  any  time.  We  did  n't  know  what  to 
do,  but  Banta  he  did.  He  grabbed  up  a  saw,  and  said 
he  'd  crawl  in  and  get  Dave  out.  And,  by  thunder! 
he  did.  He  just  wriggled  in  and  out  like  a  snake 
through  those  timbers,  and  when  he  got  to  Dave  he 
sawed  off  the  end  of  a  beam  that  held  him  and  then 
dragged  him  out.  He  took  big  chances,  for,  you  see, 
if  he  'd  sawed  off  the  wrong  beam  it  might  have 
brought  down  the  whole  business  on  both  of  them. 
But  Banta  he  knew  how  to  do  it.  Oh,  he  was  a  won- 
der! They  gave  him  the  medal  for  that,  and  pro- 
moted him.  Say,  you  'd  never  guess  how  he  ended 
up?" 

"How?"  I  asked. 

"Got  hit  by  a  cable-car;  yes,  sir.  Hurt  so  bad  they 
retired  him.  What  d'  ye  think  of  that?  Not  afraid 
of  the  devil,  and  done  up  by  a  measly  cable-car !" 


IV 


FAMOUS    RESCUES    BY    NEW    YORK    FIRE-BOATS 
FROM    RED-HOT    OCEAN    LINERS 

AFTER  all  has  been  said  that  may  be  about  our  ad- 
LlL  mirable  fire-engines,  and  endless  stories  have 
been  told  of  gallant  fights  made  by  the  engine  lads 
for  life  and  property,  there  remains  this  fact :  that  New 
York  possesses  a  far  more  formidable  weapon  against 
fires  than  the  plucky  little  "steamers"  that  go  clang- 
ing and  tooting  about  our  streets.  The  fire-boat  is  as 
much  superior  to  the  familiar  fire-engine  as  a  rapid- 
fire  cannon  is  superior  to  a  rifle.  A  single  fire-boat 
like  the  New-Yorker  will  throw  as  much  water  in  a 
given  time  as  twenty  ordinary  fire-engines :  it  will 
throw  twelve  thousand  gallons  in  a  minute — that  is, 
fifty  tons;  or,  if  we  imagine  this  great  quantity  of 
water  changed  into  a  rope  of  ice,  say  an  inch  thick,  it 
would  reach  twenty  miles. 

Suppose  we  go  aboard  her  now,  this  admirable 
New-Yorker,  and  look  about  a  little.  People  come 
a  long  way  to  see  her,  for  she  's  the  largest  and  finest 
fire-boat  in  the  world.  Pretty,  is  n't  she?  All  brass 
and  hard  wood  and  electric  lights,  everything  shining 
like  a  pleasure-yacht.  Looks  like  a  gunboat  with  rows 
of  cannon  all  around  her — queer,  stumpy  little  cannon, 
that  have  wheels  above  their  mouths.  Those  are  hose 
connections,  like  hydrants  in  a  city,  where  they  screw 
fast  the  rubber  lines.  She  has  twenty-one  on  a  side; 
that  makes  forty-two  "gates,"  as  the  engineer  calls 

16  241 


242  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

them,  without  counting  four  monitors  aloft — those 
things  on  the  pilot-house  that  look  like  telescopes  with 
long  red  tails.  It  was  the  monitors,  especially  "Big 
Daddy,"  that  did  such  great  work  against  those  North 
German  Lloyders,  in  their  drift  down  the  river,  in 
1900,  with  decks  ablaze  and  red-hot  iron  hulls.  We 
shall  hear  all  about  that  day  if  we  sit  us  down  quietly 
in  the  fire  quarters  ashore  and  get  the  crew  started. 

Stepping  over-side  again,  here  we  are  in  the  home 
of  the  fire-boat  crew.  It  's  more  like  a  club  than  an 
engine-house.  No  horses  stamping  about,  no  stable; 
but  pictures  on  the  walls,  and  men  playing  cribbage 
or  reading,  and  nobody  in  a  hurry.  Plenty  of  time 
for  tales  of  adventure,  unless  that  gong  takes  to 
tapping. 

And  here  comes  Gallagher,  sliding  down  yonder 
brass  column  from  the  sleeping-rooms.  He  's  the  lad 
who  did  fine  things  in  that  great  fire  at  the  Mallory 
pier — saved  a  man's  life  and  made  the  roll  of  honor  by 
it.  We  '11  never  get  the  story  from  him,  but  the  other 
boys  will  tell  us. 

If  ever  fire-boats  proved  their  value,  it  was  that  night 
in  May,  1900,  when  Pier  19,  East  River,  caught  fire, 
with  all  its  length  of  inflammable  freight.  Close  to 
three  o'clock  in  the  morning  it  was,  and  a  hurricane 
from  the  northeast  was  driving  the  flames  toward  land. 
Before  the  engines  could  start,  a  fire-wave  had  leaped 
across  South  Street  and  was  raging  down  the  block. 
And  another  fire-wave  had  leaped  across  the  dock  be- 
tween Pier  19  and  Pier  20,  setting  fire  to  a  dozen 
barges  and  lighters  moored  there,  and  to  the  steamship 
Neuces  of  the  Mallory  line.  And  presently  all  these 
were  blazing,  some  with  cargoes  of  cotton  and  oil, 
blazing  until  the  lower  end  of  the  island  looked  out  of 
the  night  in  ghastly  illumination,  a  terrible  picture  in 


INTO   THIS    STREET   OF   FIRE,    BETWEEN   THE   TWO   PIERS,    STEAMED   THE    BIG    FIRE- 
BOAT,    STRAIGHT  IN,   WITH   FOUR   STREAMS   PLAYING  TO   PORT  AND 
FOUR   TO   STARBOARD,    ALL   DOING   THEIR    PRETTIEST." 


244  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

red  and  black.  They  say  it  was  bright  enough  that 
night  half  a  mile  away  for  a  man  to  pick  up  a  pin. 

There  is  no  harder  problem  for  the  engines  than 
these  fierce-driven  water-front  fires  that  sweep  in  sud- 
denly shoreward,  for  they  must  be  taken  head  on,  with 
all  the  smoke  in  the  firemen's  faces,  and  water  often 
lacking,  strange  to  say,  although  the  river  is  so  near. 
For  the  fire-boats,  however,  the  advantage  is  the  other 
way;  they  attack  from  the  rear,  where  they  see  what 
they  are  doing,  and  can  pump  from  a  whole  ocean. 
Besides  that,  they  attack  with  so  formidable  a  battery 
that  no  hook-and-ladder  corps  is  needed  to  ' 'break 
open"  for  them.  The  three-inch  stream  from  Big 
Daddy  alone  will  tear  off  roofs  and  rip  out  beams  like 
the  play  of  artillery;  and  if  that  is  not  sufficient,  the 
boys  have  only  to  hitch  on  the  four-and-a-half-inch 
nozzle  and  set  the  two  pumps  feeding  it  five  thousand 
gallons  a  minute,  or  twenty  tons  of  water.  Under 
that  shock  there  is  no  wall  built  of  brick  and  mortar 
that  will  not  crumble. 

When  the  New-Yorker  came  up  on  this  memorable 
night  the  fifth  alarm  had  sounded  and  things  were 
looking  serious.  Piers  19  and  20  were  in  full  flame, 
and  every  floating  thing  between  them.  Into  this 
street  of  fire  steamed  the  big  fire-boat,  straight  in,  with 
four  streams  playing  to  port  and  four  to  starboard,  all 
doing  their  prettiest.  She  went  ahead  slowly,  fighting 
back  the  flames  foot  by  foot,  on  pier  and  steamship 
and  kindling  small  craft  that  drifted  by  in  fiery  proces- 
sion. And  the  air  in  the  men's  faces  was  like  the 
breath  of  a  furnace ! 

Here  it  was  that  Gallagher  won  his  place  on  the 
roll  of  honor  in  this  wise.  For  some  time  they  had 
heard  shouts  that  were  lost  in  the  din  of  conflagration ; 
but  presently  they  made  them  out  as  a  warning  from 


GALLAGHER'S  RESCUE  OF  A  SWEDE  FROM  THE  BURNING  BARGE. 


246  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

somebody  somewhere  that  a  man  was  on  a  burning 
barge  just  passing  them.  It  seemed  incredible  that  a 
man  could  be  there,  alive  and  silent;  but,  with  the 
spirit  of  his  trade,  Gallagher  determined  to  see  if  it 
were  true :  he  would  board  the  barge  anyhow ;  and  as 
the  New-Yorker  swung  close  alongside,  he  sprang  down 
to  her  deck,  where  things  were  a  good  deal  warmer  than 
is  necessary  for  a  man's  health.  And  as  he  leaped, 
John  Kerrigan,  at  the  steering-wheel  of  Big  Daddy, 
turned  its  mighty  stream  against  the  barge,  keeping  it 
just  over  Gallagher's  head,  so  that  the  spray  drenched 
down  upon  him  while  the  stream  itself  smote  a  path 
ahead  through  the  fire. 

Down  this  path  went  Gallagher,  searching  for  a 
man,  avoiding  pitfalls  of  smoke  and  treacherous  tim- 
bers, confident  that  Kerrigan  would  hold  the  flames 
back,  yet  see  to  it  that  the  terrible  battering-ram  of 
water  did  not  strike  him — for  to  be  struck  with  the  full 
force  of  Big  Daddy's  stream  is  like  being  pounded  by 
a  trip-hammer. 

Gallagher  reached  the  cabin  door,  found  it  locked, 
put  his  back  against  it  and  smashed  it  in.  Then  he 
went  on,  groping,  choking,  feeling  his  way,  searching 
for  his  man.  And  at  last  on  one  of  the  bunks  he 
found  him,  stretched  out  in  a  stupor  of  sleep  or 
drowsed  by  the  stifle  of  gases.  The  man  was  a  Swede 
named  Thomas  Bund,  and  he  came  out  of  that  cabin 
on  Gallagher's  back,  came  off  that  burning  barge  on 
Gallagher's  back,  and  if  he  does  not  bless  the  name  of 
Gallagher  all  his  days,  then  there  is  no  gratitude  in 
Sweden. 

Here  we  see  the  kind  of  service  the  fire-boats  render. 
On  this  night  they  saved  the  situation  and  a  million 
dollars  besides ;  they  worked  against  a  blazing  steam- 
ship, against  blazing  piers,  against  blazing  runaways; 


THE    FIREMAN  247 

worked  for  eleven  hours,  until  the  last  smolder  of  fire 
had  been  drowned  under  thirty  thousand  tons  of  water. 
And  not  a  year  passes  but  they  do  something  of  like 
sort.  Now  it  is  a  steamship,  say  the  ill-starred  Leona, 
that  comes  up  the  bay  with  a  cargo  of  cotton  burning 
between  decks.  The  New-Yorker  makes  short  work 
of  her.  Again  it  is  a  blazing  lumber  district  along 
the  river,  like  the  great  McClave  yards,  where  the  fire- 
boats  fought  for  eight  days  and  nights  before  they 
gained  the  victory.  But  they  did  gain  it.  Or  it  may 
be  a  fire  back  from  the  river,  like  the  Tarrant  horror, 
where  the  land  engines,  sore  pressed,  welcome  far- 
carried  streams  from  the  fire-boats  as  help  that  may 
turn  the  balance. 

"Why,  this  fire-boat  's  only  ten  years  old,  sir,"  said 
Captain  Braisted,  "and  she  's  saved  more  than  she  cost 
every  year  we  've  had  her."  Then  he  added,  as  his 
eyes  dwelt  proudly  on  the  trim  craft  purring  at  her 
dock-side:  "And  she  cost  a  tidy  sum,  too." 

Let  us  come  now  to  that  placid  summer  afternoon, 
to  that  terrible  Saturday,  June  30,  1900,  when  tug-boats 
in  the  North  River  looked  upon  a  fire  the  like  of  which 
the  river  had  never  known  and  may  not  know  again. 
They  looked  from  a  distance,  we  may  be  sure,  these 
tug-boats ;  for  when  a  great  liner  swings  down-stream, 
a  roaring,  red-hot  furnace,  it  is  time  for  wooden-deck 
craft  to  scurry  out  of  the  way.  And  here  were  three 
liners  in  such  case,  the  Bremen,  the  Saale,  and  the 
Main,  all  burning  furiously  and  beyond  human  help, 
one  would  say,  for  their  iron  hulls  were  vast  fire-traps, 
with  port-holes  too  small  for  rescue,  and  the  decks 
swept  with  flame.  It  was  hard  to  know  that  back  of 
those  steep  sides  were  men  in  anguish,  held  like  pris- 
oners in  a  fortress  of  glowing  steel  that  sizzled  as  it 
drifted — three  fortresses  of  glowing  steel. 


248  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

Then  up  steamed  the  New-Yorker  and  the  Van 
Wyck,  with  men  behind  fire-shields  against  the  blis- 
tering scorch  and  glare,  with  monitors  and  rail-pipes 
spurting  out  all  that  the  pumps  could  send.  The  New- 
Yorker  took  the  Bremen,  the  Van  Wyck  took  the 
Saale;  and  there  they  lay  for  hours,  close  on  the  edge 
of  the  fire,  like  a  pair  of  salamanders,  engines  throb- 
bing, pumps  pounding,  pilots  at  the  wheel  watching 
every  movement  of  the  liners,  following  foot  by  foot, 
drawing  in  closer  when  they  gained  on  the  fire,  hold- 
ing away  a  shade  when  the  fire  gained  on  them,  fight- 
ing every  minute. 

"It  's  queer,"  said  Captain  Braisted,  "but  when  you 
play  a  broadside  of  heavy  streams  on  a  vessel's  side, 
say  at  fifty  feet,  there  's  a  strong  recoil  that  keeps  driv- 
ing the  fire-boat  back.  It 's  as  if  you  were  pushing  off 
all  the  time  with  poles  instead  of  water.  And  you 
have  to  keep  closing  in  with  the  engines." 

"How  near  did  you  get  to  the  Bremen?"  I  asked. 

"Oh,  we  finally  got  right  up  against  her,  say  after 
forty-five  minutes.  You  can  cool  off  a  lot  of  red-hot 
iron  in  forty-five  minutes  when  you  Ve  got  forty-five 
tons  of  water  a  minute  to  do  it  with." 

It  was  just  as  they  came  alongside  that  one  of  the 
crew  made  out  a  human  shape  in  the  coal-chute  some 
ten  feet  up  the  Bremen's  side.  And  presently  they 
saw  others  there,  blackened  faces,  fierce  and  fearful 
eyes.  And  above  the  fire  crackle  and  the  crash  of 
water  they  heard  men's  cries. 

Straightway  a  ladder  was  brought,  and  three  of  the 
crew,  Breen,  Kerrigan,  and  Hartmann,  lifted  it  on 
their  shoulders  until  the  top  rung  came  up  level  with 
the  coal-chute.  But  this,  instead  of  bringing  relief  to 
the  fire-bound  company,  brought  madness ;  for  now 
they  fought  and  struggled  so,  each  one  wishing  to  go 


THE   FIREMAN  249 

first,  that  none  were  able  to  go  at  all.  "They  were  like 
wild  beasts/'  said  one  of  the  crew. 

In  this  crisis  Gallagher  sprang  up  the  ladder  to  the 
top,  where  he  could  look  in  through  the  hole,  the  one 
hole  in  all  the  vessel's  sides  that  was  large  enough  for 
a  man's  body  to  pass.  And  reaching  in  here,  he 
grabbed  what  was  nearest,  arm,  leg,  or  shock  of  hair, 
and  hauled  it  out  and  lowered  it  down  the  ladder  to 
Captain  Braisted,  who  stood  below  him  and  passed  the 
bundle  on.  Then  Gallagher  grabbed  again  and  again, 
pulling  forth  by  sheer  strength  one  man  at  a  time,  tak- 
ing them  as  they  came,  Germans  or  Italians,  officers 
or  coal-handlers,  anything  that  was  alive.  Down 
came  the  tumbling  mass,  yelling,  praying,  fighting,  a 
miserable  human  stream;  and  when  it  was  all  over 
and  the  count  was  taken,  they  had  saved  thirty-two 
lives. 

Now  one  of  the  rescued  men  spoke  up  in  broken 
English,  and  said  that  there  were  others  still  on  the 
Bremen,  down  in  the  engine-room.  And  Gallagher 
volunteered  to  go  aboard  for  the  rescue  if  one  of  the 
men  who  knew  the  vessel  would  come  along  to  guide 
him.  But  no  man  offered  this  service.  It  was  too 
hazardous  a  thing,  they  said;  where  the  fire  was  not 
raging  there  was  smoke  and  darkness,  and  the  engine- 
room  was  far  down  in  the  vessel.  They  had  groped 
about  themselves  for  half  an  hour  in  despair,  search- 
ing for  the  way  out,  and  now  that  they  had  found  it, 
they  were  not  fools  enough  to  go  in  again. 

"But  you  say  there  are  others  in  there  alive!"  in- 
sisted Gallagher. 

The  rescued  ones  shook  their  heads  blankly  at  this; 
in  their  minds  the  law  of  self-preservation  rode  over 
all  other  things  at  this  moment.  Poor  men,  they 
were  half  dazed  by  their  sufferings  and  the  shock ! 


SAVING  THE   MEN   OF   THE    "BREMEN." 


THE    FIREMAN  251 

"All  right,"  cried  Gallagher;  "I  '11  go  in  and  find 
'em  without  any  guide.  Hold  the  ladder,  boys." 

And  up  he  went! 

"I  'm  with  you,  Ned,"  called  Captain  Braisted;  and 
without  more  words  these  two  climbed  in  through  the 
coal-chute  and  started  down  the  black,  hot,  stifling 
ways  for  the  engine-room.  And  somehow  they  got 
there  safely,  and  found  eight  men  still  alive,  all  Ger- 
mans, engineers  and  their  assistants.  But  when  the 
firemen  called  to  them  to  hurry  out  for  their  lives, 
they  refused  to  move.  Their  duty  was  with  their  en- 
gines, said  they;  they  had  to  run  the  engines;  they 
were  much  obliged  to  the  American  gentlemen,  but 
they  could  not  leave  their  post. 

Gallagher  and  Braisted  could  scarcely  believe  their 
ears. 

"But  you  will  die !"  they  urged. 

The  Germans  thought  it  very  likely ;  still  they  could 
not  leave. 

"But  it  won't  do  any  good;  the  vessel  is  past  hope; 
you  will  be  burned  to  death." 

The  Germans  understood  perfectly :  they  would  be 
burned  to  death  at  their  engines;  and  as  they  were  all 
of  this  mind  and  not  to  be  shaken,  the  firemen  could 
only  say  "good-by"  and  set  forth  sadly  on  the  return 
journey.  And  this  time  they  nearly  lost  themselves, 
but  at  last  their  good  star  prevailed,  and  they  came 
without  harm  to  their  comrades,  who  listened  in  won- 
der to  the  news  they  brought.  It  seemed  such  utter 
folly,  the  decision  of  that  unhappy  engine-room  crew, 
yet  there  was  something  almost  splendid  in  their  stub- 
born devotion  to  duty.  Quietly  they  had  looked  death 
in  the  face,  a  horrible,  lingering  death,  and  had  not 
flinched ;  and  days  later,  when  the  steamer  had  burned 
herself  out  and  lay  grounded  in  the  mud,  cold  and 


252  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

black,  the  wreckers  found  these  faithful  though  mis- 
taken men  still  at  their  posts,  still  by  their  engines, 
where  they  had  waited  in  spite  of  everything — where 
they  had  perished. 

All  this  time  the  Van  Wyck  had  been  working  on 
the  Saale,  but  in  a  harder  fight,  for  the  flames  raged 
here  as  fiercely  as  on  the  Bremen,  while  the  smaller 
fire-boat  could  throw  against  them  only  twenty-five 
tons  of  water  a  minute,  which  was  not  enough. 

So,  now,  when  all  had  been  done  that  could  be  for 
the  Bremen,  orders  came  that  the  Neiv-Yorker,  too, 
turn  her  streams  against  the  Saale,  and  a  little  later 
the  two  fire-boats  were  in  massed  attack  upon  the  un- 
happy liner,  which  swung  down  the  bay  like  a  blazing 
island,  and  presently  grounded  by  the  bow  on  the  Com- 
munipaw  mud-flats,  and  rested  there  for  the  last  agony. 

The  story  of  those  tragic  hours  is  not  for  telling 
now.  There  were  more  heroic  rescues.  There  were 
brave  attempts  at  rescue  that  availed  nothing.  The 
fire  lads  stood  on  the  hurricane  deck,  with  flames  roar- 
ing about  them  and  water  up  to  their  knees  surging 
past  like  a  mill-race;  it  was  the  return  torrent  from 
their  own  nozzles.  Foot  by  foot  the  stern  settled  and 
the  water  crept  nearer,  nearer  to  the  open  port-holes. 
In  a  large  stateroom  aft  fourteen  men  and  one  woman 
gave  a  noble  picture  of  resignation  in  the  face  of  an 
awful  death.  Hemmed  in  there  between  fire  and 
water,  they  prayed  quietly,  and  thanked  the  fire  lads 
for  cups  of  water  passed  in  through  the  port-hole,  and 
waved  "good-by"  as  the  stern  gave  a  final  lurch  and 
went  down. 

Nor  does  this  end  the  record  of  that  day,  for 
there  was  still  the  Main  to  fight  for,  and  at  eleven 
o'clock  that  night  the  New-Yorker  steamed  up  the 
river  and  caught  the  third  liner  as  the  flood-tide  bore 


254  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

her  stern  first  toward  the  flats  of  Weehawken.  She 
had  been  blazing  for  eight  hours,  and  was  red-hot 
now  from  the  water-line  up  It  seemed  incredible 
that  there  could  be  a  living  thing  aboard  her,  yet  they 
went  to  work  in  the  old  way,  and  within  an  hour  had 
dragged  out  through  the  coal-hole  a  blackened  and 
frightened  company,  more  than  a  score  of  boiler-clean- 
ers and  coal-handlers  who  had  somehow  lived  through 
those  fearful  hours  by  burrowing  down  in  the  deepest 
bunkers  far  below  the  water-level. 

After  this  the  fire-boats  did  other  things. 


THE  AERIAL  ACROBAT 
i 

SHOWING    THAT    IT    TAKES    MORE    THAN    MUSCLE 
AND    SKILL    TO    WORK    ON    THE    HIGH    BARS 

A  FEW  years  ago  I  had  the  pleasure  of  traveling  for 
ten  days  with  a  great  circus,  and  in  this  way  came 
to  know  some  very  interesting  people — elephant-keep- 
ers, lion-tamers,  trapeze  performers,  bareback  riders, 
not  to  mention  the  bearded  lady,  the  dog-faced  boy, 
and  other  side-show  celebrities  who  used  to  eat  with  us 
in  the  cook-tent — there  was  one  gentleman,  appareled 
in  blue  velvet,  who  ate  with  his  feet,  for  the  reason 
that  he  had  no  arms,  and  would  reach  across  for  salt 
or  butter  with  an  easy  knee-and-ankle  movement  that 
was  a  perpetual  surprise. 

What  strange  things  one  sees  traveling  with  a  cir- 
cus !  Every  night  there  is  a  mile  of  trains  to  be  loaded, 
every  morning  a  tented  city  to  be  built.  Such  hard 
work  for  everybody!  Two  performances  a  day,  be- 
sides the  street  procession.  And  what  a  busy  time  in 
the  tents !  Leapers  getting  ready,  double-somersault 
men  getting  ready,  clowns  stuffing  out  false  stomachs 
and  chalking  their  faces,  kings  of  the  air  buckling  on 
their  spangles.  Ouf!  How  glad  we  all  were  when 
five  o'clock  came,  and  the  concert  was  over,  and  the 
"big  top,"  with  its  spreading  amphitheater  and  its  four 
great  center-poles,  stood  silent  and  empty! 

It  was  at  this  five-o'clock  hour  one  day  that  I  first 

255 


256  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

saw  little  Nelson,  the  ten-year-old  trapeze  performer, 
and  that  picture  remains  among  the  pleasantest  of  my 
circus  memories.  I  can  recall  more  exciting  things, 
like  the  fight  between  two  jealous  wrestlers,  or  the 
mystery  of  the  lost  Chinese  giant,  or  the  story  of  a 
wrecked  train,  when  the  wild  animals  escaped  and  the 
fat  lady  was  rescued  with  difficulty  from  a  burning 
car.  And  I  can  recall  sad  things,  the  case  of  that  poor 
trapeze  girl,  two  weeks  a  widow,  who  nevertheless 
went  through  her  act  twice  a  day  and  tripped  away 
kissing  her  hands  to  the  crowd  while  her  heart  was 
breaking.  And  saddest  of  all  was  the  case  of  beauti- 
ful "Zazel,"  once  the  much-advertised  "human  cannon- 
ball,"  then  suddenly  a  helpless  cripple  after  a  fall  from 
the  dome  of  the  tent.  Her  husband,  one  of  the  circus 
men,  told  me  how  she  lived  for  more  than  a  year  in  a 
plaster  case  swung  down  from  the  ceiling,  and  of  her 
sweetness  and  patience  through  it  all.  And  she  finally 
recovered,  I  am  glad  to  say,  so  that  she  could  walk — a 
pale,  weak  image  of  this  once  splendid  circus  queen. 

But  let  me  come  to  Nelson.  This  sturdy  little  fel- 
low was  one  of  the  circus  children,  "born  on  the  saw- 
dust," brought  up  to  regard  lion  cages  as  the  proper 
background  for  a  nursery,  and  thinking  of  father  and 
mother  in  connection  with  the  Hying  bars  and  bare- 
back feats.  It  was  Nelson's  ambition  to  follow  in  his 
father's  steps  and  become  a  great  artist  on  the  trapeze. 
Indeed,  at  this  time  he  felt  himself  already  an  artist, 
and  at  the  hour  of  rest  would  walk  forth  into  the 
middle  ring  all  alone  and  with  greatest  dignity  go 
through  his  practice.  He  would  not  be  treated  as  a 
child,  and  scorned  any  suggestion  that  he  go  out  and 
play.  Play?  He  had  work  to  do.  Look  here!  Do 
you  know  any  man  who  can  throw  a  prettier  row  of 
flip-flaps  than  this?  And  wait!  Here  's  a  forward 


THE  AERIAL  ACROBAT  257 

somersault!  Is  it  well  done  or  not?  Did  he  come 
over  with  a  good  lift?  Like  his  father,  you  think? 
Ah !  I  can  still  see  his  chest  swell  with  pride. 

Nelson  was  not  a  regular  member  of  the  show;  he 
was  a  child,  and  merely  came  along  with  his  parents, 
the  circus  being  his  only  home;  but  occasionally,  after 
much  teasing  or  as  a  reward  for  good  behavior,  his 
father  would  lead  the  boy  forth  before  a  real  audience. 
And  how  they  would  applaud  as  the  trim  little  figure 
in  black-and-yellow  tights  rose  slowly  to  the  tent-top, 
feet  together,  body  arched  back,  teeth  set  on  the  thong 
of  the  pulley-line  that  his  father  held  anxiously ! 

And  how  the  women  would  catch  their  breath  when 
Nelson,  hanging  by  his  knees  in  the  long  swing,  would 
suddenly  pretend  to  slip,  seem  to  fall,  then  catch  the  bar 
cleverly  by  his  heels  and  sweep  far  out  over  the  spread 
of  faces,  arms  folded,  head  back,  and  a  look  that  said 
plainly :  "Don't  you  people  sec  what  an  artist  I  am?" 

This  boy  possessed  the  two  great  requisites  in  a 
trapeze  performer,  absolute  fearlessness  and  a  longing 
to  perform  in  the  air — which  longing  made  him  will- 
ing to  take  endless  pains  in  learning.  It  would  seem 
that  acrobats  differ  from  divers,  steeple-climbers,  lion- 
tamers,  and  the  rest  in  this,  that  from  their  early  years 
they  have  been  strongly  drawn  to  the  career  before 
them,  to  leaping,  turning  in  the  air,  and  difficult  tricks 
on  the  trapeze  and  horizontal  bars.  The  acrobat  must 
be  born  an  acrobat,  not  so  much  because  his  feats  might 
not  be  learned  by  an  ordinary  man,  but  because  the 
particular  kind  of  courage  needed  to  make  an  acrobat 
is  not  found  in  the  ordinary  man.  In  other  words,  to 
be  an  aerial  leaper  or  an  artist  on  the  flying  bars  is 
quite  as  much  a  matter  of  heart  as  of  agility  and 
muscle.  There  are  men  who  know  how  to  do  these 
things,  but  can't. 

17 


258  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

In  illustration  of  this  let  me  present  three  of  my  cir- 
cus friends,  Weitzel  and  Zorella  and  Danny  Ryan, 
trapeze  professionals  whose  daring  and  skill  are  justly 
celebrated.  Zorella's  real  name,  I  may  say,  is  Nagel, 
and  so  far  from  being  a  dashing  foreigner,  he  is  a 
quiet-spoken  young  man  from  Grand  Rapids,  Michi- 
gan, where  he  learned  his  first  somersaults  tumbling 
about  on  sawdust  piles.  And  at  sixteen  he  was  the 
only  boy  in  the  region  who  could  do  the  giant  swing. 
Whereupon  along  came  a  circus  with  an  acrobat  who 
needed  a  "brother,"  and  Nagel  got  the  job.  Two  days 
later  he  began  performing  in  the  ring,  and  since  then 
— that  was  ten  years  ago — he  has  n't  missed  a  cir- 
cus day. 

The  act  that  has  given  these  three  their  fame  in- 
cludes a  swing,  a  leap,  and  a  catch,  which  seems  simple 
enough  until  one  learns  the  length  and  drop  of  that 
swing,  and  how  the  leapers  turn  in  the  air,  and  what 
momentum  their  bodies  have  as  they  shoot  toward  the 
man  hanging  for  the  catch  from  the  last  bar.  It  is 
Weitzel  who  catches  the  other  two.  He  was  "under- 
stander"  in  a  "brother"  act  before  he  learned  the 
trapeze ;  and  the  man  who  earns  his  living  by  holding 
two  or  three  men  on  his  head  and  shoulders  while  they 
do  tricks  of  balancing  is  pretty  sure  to  build  up  a 
strong  body.  And  Weitzel  needs  all  his  strength 
when  Danny  springs  from  the  pedestal  over  there  at 
the  tent-top  fifty-two  feet  away,  and,  swinging  through 
a  half-circle  thirty-six  feet  across,  comes  the  last  six- 
teen feet  flying  free,  and  turning  twice  as  he  comes. 
For  all  his  brawny  arms,  Weitzel  would  be  torn  away 
by  the  clutch  of  that  hurling  mass,  were  not  the  strain 
eased  by  the  stretch  of  fourteen  thongs  of  rubber,  seven 
on  a  side,  that  support  his  bar  cords.  And  sometimes, 
as  the  leapers  "catch,  the  bar  sags  full  four  feet,  and 


AS  THEY   SHOOT  TOWARD  THE   MAN   HANGING   FOR  THE  CATCH 
FROM   THE  LAST  BAR." 


260  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

then,  as  they  "snap  off"  down  to  the  net,  springs  nine 
feet  up,  so  that  Weitzel's  head  has  many  a  time 
bumped  the  top  support. 

The  catcher-man  must  hold  himself  ready  for  a 
dozen  different  leaps,  must  watch  for  the  safety  clutch 
where  the  four  hands  grip  first  at  the  elbows,  then 
slide  down  the  forearms  to  the  wrists  and  hold  there 
where  the  tight-bound  handkerchiefs  jam;  he  must 
know  how  to  seize  Zorella  by  the  ankles  when  he  shoots 
at  him  feet  up  after  a  backward  double ;  he  must  know 
how  to  land  Danny  when  he  comes  turning  swiftly 
with  eyes  blindfolded  and  body  bound  in  a  sack. 

All  these  feats  are  hard  enough  to  do,  yet  still 
harder,  one  might  say,  is  the  mere  starting  to  do  them. 
There  are  scores  of  acrobats,  well  skilled  in  doubles 
and  shoots  and  twisters,  who  would  not  for  their  lives 
go  up  on  the  pedestal  whence  Ryan  and  Zorella  make 
their  spring,  and  simply  take  the  first  long  swing  hang- 
ing from  the  trapeze.  Nothing  else,  simply  take  the 
swing ! 

The  fact  is,  there  is  an  enormous  difference  between 
working  on  horizontal  bars  say  ten  feet  above  ground, 
and  on  the  same  bars  thirty  feet  above  ground,  or  be- 
tween a  trapeze  act  with  leaps  after  a  moderate  swing, 
and  the  same  act  with  leaps  after  a  long  swing.  Often 
I  have  watched  Ryan  and  Zorella  poised  on  the  pedes- 
tal just  before  the  swing  and  holding  the  trapeze  bar 
drawn  so  far  over  to  one  side  that  its  supporting 
wires  come  up  almost  horizontal ;  and  even  on  the 
ground  it  has  made  me  dizzy  to  see  them  lean  forward 
for  the  bar  which  falls  short  of  the  pedestal,  so  that 
they  can  barely  catch  it  with  the  left-hand  fingers, 
while  the  right  hand  clings  to  the  pedestal  brace. 
They  need  the  send  of  that  initial  spring  to  give  them 
speed,  but — 


THE  AERIAL  ACROBAT  261 

Well,  there  was  a  very  powerful  and  active  man  in 
Columbus,  Ohio,  a  kind  of  local  athlete,  who  agreed, 
on  a  wager,  to  swing  off  from  the  pedestal  as  Danny 
and  Zorella  did.  And  one  day  a  small  company  gath- 
ered at  the  practice  hour  to  see  him  do  it.  He  said  it 
was  easy  enough.  His  friends  chaffed  him  and  vowed 
he  "could  n't  do  it  in  a  hundred  years."  The  big  man 
climbed  up  the  swinging  ladder  to  the  starting-place, 
and  stood  there  looking  down.  When  you  stand  on 
the  pedestal  the  ground  seems  a  long  way  below  you, 
and  there  is  little  comfort  in  the  net.  The  big  man 
said  nothing,  but  began  to  get  pale.  He  had  the 
trapeze-bar  all  right  with  one  hand;  the  thing  was  to 
let  go  with  the  other. 

For  ten  minutes  the  big  man  stood  there.  He  said 
he  was  n't  in  a  hurry.  His  friends  continued  to  joke 
him.  One  man  urged  him  to  come  down.  The  pro- 
fessionals told  him  he  'd  better  not  try  it  if  he  was 
afraid — at  which  the  others  laughed,  and  that  settled 
it,  for  the  big  man  was  afraid;  but  he  was  stubborn, 
too,  and,  rising  on  his  toes,  he  threw  his  right  arm  for- 
ward and  started.  He  caught  the  bar  safely  with  his 
right  hand,  swept  down  like  a  great  pendulum,  and 
at  the  lowest  point  of  the  swing  was  ripped  away  from 
the  bar  with  the  jerk  of  his  two  hundred  pounds,  and 
went  skating  along  the  length  of  the  net  on  his  face 
until  he  was  a  sorry-looking  big  man  with  the  scratch 
of  the  meshes.  Not  one  athlete  in  twenty,  they  say, 
without  special  training,  could  hold  that  bar  after  such 
a  drop. 

Zorella  cited  a  case  in  point  where  a  first-class  acro- 
bat was  offered  a  much  larger  salary  by  a  rival  circus 
to  become  the  partner  of  an  expert  on  the  high  bars. 
"This  man  was  crazy  to  accept,"  said  Zorella,  "and 
everything  was  practically  settled.  The  two  did  their 


262  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

act  together  on  the  low  bars  in  great  shape.  Then 
they  tried  it  on  the  high  bars,  and  the  new  man 
stuck  right  at  the  go-off.  Queerest  thing  you  ever 
saw.  He  had  to  start  on  the  end  bar  with  a  giant 
swing, — that  gives  'em  their  send,  you  know, — then 
do  a  backward  single  to  the  middle  bar,  then  a  shoot 
on  to  the  last  bar,  and  from  there  drop  with  somer- 
saults down  to  the  net.  All  this  was  easy  for  him 
on  the  low  bars,  but  when  he  got  up  high — well,  he 
had  n't  the  nerve  to  let  go  of  the  first  bar  after  the 
giant  swing.  He  kept  going  round  and  round,  and 
just  stuck  there.  Seemed  as  if  his  hands  were  nailed 
fast  to  that  bar.  We  talked  to  him,  and  reasoned  with 
him,  and  he  tried  over  and  over  again,  but  it  was  no 
use.  He  could  drop  from  the  last  bar,  he  could  shoot 
from  the  middle  bar,  but  to  save  his  life  he  could  n't 
let  go  of  the  first  bar.  I  don't  know  whether  he  was 
afraid,  or  what;  but  he  could  n't  do  it,  and  the  end 
of  it  was,  he  had  to  give  up  the  offer,  although  it 
nearly  broke  his  heart." 

And  even  acrobats  accustomed  to  working  at  heights 
feel  uneasy  in  the  early  spring  when  they  begin  prac- 
tising for  a  new  season.  The  old  tricks  have  al- 
ways in  a  measure  to  be  learned  over  again,  and  they 
work  gradually  from  simple  things  to  harder  ones 
— a  straight  leap,  then  one  somersault,  then  two.  And 
foot  by  foot  the  pedestal  is  lifted  until  the  body  over- 
comes its  shrinking.  Even  so  I  saw  Zorella  one  day 
scratched  and  bruised  from  many  failures  in  the  trick 
where  Weitzel  catches  him  by  the  ankles.  Here,  after 
the  long  swing,  he  must  shoot  ahead  feet  first  as  if  for 
a  backward  somersault,  and  then,  changing  suddenly, 
do  a  turn  and  a  half  forward,  and  dive  past  Weitzel 
with  body  whirling  so  as  to  bring  his  legs  over  just 
right  for  the  catch.  And  every  time  they  missed  of 


THE  AERIAL  ACROBAT  263 

course  he  fell,  and  risked  striking  the  net  on  his  fore- 
head, which  is  the  most  dangerous  thing  an  acrobat 
can  do.  To  save  his  neck  he  must  squirm  around,  as 
a  cat  turns,  and  land  on  his  back;  which  is  not  so 
easy  in  the  fraction  of  a  second,  especially  if  you  hap- 
pen to  be  dazed  by  a  glancing  blow  of  the  catcher-man's 
arm. 


II 


ABOUT    DOUBLE    AND    TRIPLE    SOMERSAULTS    AND 
THE    DANGER    OF    LOSING    HEART 

IN  talking  with  my  circus  friends  I  was  surprised  to 
learn  that  a  trapeze  performer  in  perfect  practice, 
say  in  mid-season,  may  suddenly,  without  knowing 
why,  begin  to  hesitate  or  blunder  in  a  certain  trick  that 
he  has  done  without  a  slip  for  years.  This  happened  to 
Danny  Ryan  in  the  fall  of  1900,  when  he  found  him- 
self growing  more  and  more  uncertain  of  his  difficult 
pirouette  leap,  a  feat  invented  by  himself  in  1896,  and 
never  done  by  another  performer.  Danny  did  it  first 
when  he  used  to  play  the  clown  with  the  spring-board 
leapers  who  do  graceful  somersaults  over  elephants 
and  horses.  With  them  would  come  Danny,  made 
up  as  a  fat  man,  and  do  a  backward  somersault  and 
a  full  twister  at  the  same  time,  the  effect  being  a 
queer  corkscrew  turn  that  made  the  people  laugh. 
They  little  suspected  that  this  awkward-looking  leap 
was  one  of  the  most  difficult  feats  in  the  air  ever  at- 
tempted, or  that  it  had  cost  Ryan  weeks  of  patient 
practice  and  many  a  hard  knock  before  he  mastered  it. 
And  then  one  day,  after  doing  it  hundreds  of  times 
with  absolute  ease,  he  did  it  badly,  then  he  did  it 
worse,  then  he  fell,  and  finally  began  to  be  afraid  of 
it  and  left  it  out  of  the  act.  Acrobats  shake  their 
heads  when  you  ask  for  an  explanation  of  a  thing  like 
that.  They  don't  know  the  explanation,  but  they 
dread  the  thing. 

264 


THE  AERIAL  ACROBAT  265 

"When  a  man  feels  that  way  about  a  trick,  he  's  got 
to  quit  it  for  a  while,"  said  Ryan,  "or  he  '11  get  hurt. 
'Most  all  the  accidents  happen  where  a  performer 
forces  himself  against  something  inside  him  that  says 
stop.  Sometimes  an  acrobat  has  to  give  up  his  work 
entirely.  Now,  there  's  Dunham, — you  've  heard  of 
him, — the  greatest  performer  in  the  world  on  high 
bars.  They  '11  give  him  any  salary  he  wants  to  ask. 
Graceful?  Well,  you  ought  to  see  him  let  go  from 
his  giant  swing  and  do  a  back  somersault  clean  over 
the  middle  bar  and  catch  the  third !  And  now  they 
say  he  's  gone  out  of  the  business.  Somebody  told 
me  it  was  religion.  Don't  you  believe  it.  He  's  had 
a  feeling — it  's  something  like  fear,  but  it  is  n't  fear 
— that  he  's  worked  on  high  bars  long  enough." 

"He  's  had  bad  luck  with  his  partners,  too,"  re- 
marked Weitzel.  "Couple  of  'em  missed  the  turn 
somehow  and  got  killed.  Say,  that  takes  a  man's 
nerve  as  much  as  anything,  to  have  his  partner  hurt. 
I  don't  wonder  Dunham  wants  to  quit." 

"Tell  you  where  it  's  hard  on  an  acrobat,"  put  in 
Zorella — "that  's  where  he  can't  quit  on  account  of  his 
family — where  he  needs  the  money.  I  remember  a 
young  fellow  joined  the  show  out  west  to  leap  over 
elephants.  He  got  along  well  enough  over  two  ele- 
phants, but  when  it  came  to  three,  why,  we  could  all 
see  he  was  shaky.  Some  of  the  boys  told  him  he  'd 
better  stop,  but  he  said  he  'd  try  to  learn,  and  he 
was  such  a  nice,  modest  fellow  and  worked  so  hard 
that  everybody  wished  him  luck.  But  it  was  n't  any 
use.  One  day  he  tackled  a  double  over  three  ele- 
phants, and  came  down  all  in  sections,  with  his  right 
foot  on  the  mattress  and  his  left  foot  on  the  ground. 
That  was  his  last  leap,  poor  fellow,  for  the  ankle  bones 
snapped  as  his  left  foot  struck,  and  a  few  hours  later 


266  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

he  lay  in  the  dressing-room  tent,  pretty  white,  with  the 
doctors  over  him.  I  '11  never  forget  the  way  he  looked 
up  at  us  when  we  came  in.  He  was  game  all  right, 
but  his  eyes  were  awful  pathetic.  'Well,  boys,'  said 
he,  'here  I  am.  I  did  the  best  I  could.'  Turned  out 
he  'd  done  it  for  a  sick  wife  and  a  little  baby.  Pretty 
tough,  was  n't  it?" 

Speaking  of  leaps  over  elephants  brings  to  my  mind 
an  afternoon  when  I  watched  a  circus  rehearsal  in  the 
open  air.  That  is  a  thing  better  worth  seeing,  to  my 
mind,  that  the  regular  performance;  the  acrobats  and 
riders  in  their  every-day  clothes  are  more  like  ordi- 
nary men  and  women,  and  their  feats  seem  the  more 
difficult  for  occasional  slips  and  failures. 

Here,  for  instance,  are  a  mother  and  daughter,  in 
shirt-waists,  watching  the  trick  monkey  ride  a  pony, 
when  suddenly  a  whistle  sounds,  and  off  goes  the 
mother  to  drive  three  plunging  horses  in  a  chariot- 
race,  while  the  daughter  hurries  to  her  part  in  an 
equestrian  quadrille.  And  now  these  children  playing 
near  the  drilling  elephants  trot  into  the  ring  and  do 
wonderful  things  on  bicycles.  And  yonder  sleepy- 
looking  man  is  a  lion-tamer;  and  those  three  are  the 
famous  Potters,  aerial  leapers ;  and  this  thick-set  fellow 
in  his  shirt-sleeves  is  Artressi,  the  best  jumper  in  the 
circus.  He  's  going  to  practise  now ;  see,  they  are  put- 
ting up  the  spring-board  and  the  long  downward  run 
that  leads  to  it.  These  other  men  are  jumpers,  too, 
but  Artressi  is  the  star;  he  draws  the  big  salary. 

Now  they  start  and  spring  off  rather  clumsily,  one 
after  another,  in  straight  leaps  to  the  mattress.  They 
won't  work  into  good  form  for  some  days  yet.  Here 
they  come  again,  a  little  faster,  and  two  of  them  try 
singles.  Here  comes  Artressi.  Ah!  a  double  for- 
ward, and  prettily  taken.  The  crowd  applauds.  Now 


268  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

a  tall  man  tries  a  double.  Gradually  the  practice  gets 
hotter  until  every  man  is  doing  his  best.  There  will 
be  stiff  joints  here  in  the  morning,  but  never  mind ! 

In  a  resting-spell  I  sat  down  by  Artressi  and  talked 
with  him  about  leaping.  It  was  hard,  he  said,  going 
off  a  spring-board  mto  empty  air.  Did  n't  know 
how  it  was,  but  he  could  always  do  better  with  some- 
thing to  leap  over,  say  elephants  or  horses.  He  could 
judge  the  mattress  easier;  was  n't  so  apt  to  miss  it. 
What  was  his  biggest  leap?  Well,  four  elephants  and 
three  camels  was  about  his  best,  with  a  pyramid  of  men 
on  top.  He  'd  cleared  that  twice  a  day  for  weeks  some 
years  ago,  but  he  would  n't  do  it  now.  No,  sir;  four 
elephants  was  enough  for  any  man  to  leap  over  if  he 
had  a  wife  and  child.  That  made  a  flight  of  thirty 
feet,  anyhow,  from  the  spring-board  to  the  ground. 
Oh,  yes,  he  turned  two  somersaults  on  the  way — for- 
ward somersaults.  It  was  n't  possible  for  anybody  to 
clear  four  elephants  and  turn  backward  somersaults. 

I  asked  Artressi  (his  real  name  is  Artress)  about  a 
leap  with  three  somersaults,  and  found  him  positive 
that  such  a  feat  will  never  become  part  of  a  regular 
circus  program.  A  man  can  turn  the  three  somer- 
saults all  right,  but  he  loses  control  of  himself,  and 
does  n't  know  whether  he  is  coming  down  right  or 
wrong.  In  fact,  he  is  sure  to  come  down  wrong  if  he 
does  it  often.  Then  he  mentioned  the  one  case  where 
he  himself  had  made  a  leap  with  three  somersaults.  It 
was  down  in  Kentucky,  at  the  home  of  his  boyhood. 
Years  had  passed  since  he  had  seen  the  town,  and  in 
that  time  he  had  risen  from  nothing  to  a  blaze  of  cir- 
cus glory.  He  had  become  the  "Great  Artressi"  in- 
stead of  little  Joe  Artress,  and  now  he  was  to  appear 
before  the  people  who  knew  him. 

It  was  perhaps  the  most  exciting  moment  of  his  life, 


THE  AERIAL  ACROBAT  269 

and  as  he  came  down  the  run  toward  the  spring-board 
he  nerved  himself  to  so  fine  an  effort  that  instead  of 
doing  two  somersaults  over  the  horses  and  elephants, 
as  he  intended,  he  did  three,  and,  by  a  miracle  of  for- 
tune, landed  safely.  That  was  his  first  and  last  triple ; 
he  was  n't  taking  chances  of  a  broken  neck  or  a  twisted 
spine,  which  had  been  the  end  of  more  than  one  ambi- 
tious leaper.  No,  sir ;  he  would  stick  to  doubles,  where 
a  man  knows  exactly  what  he  's  doing. 

In  talking  with  acrobats,  I  came  upon  an  interesting 
phenomenon  that  seems  almost  like  a  violation  of  the 
laws  of  gravitation.  It  appears  that  the  movements 
of  a  performer  on  the  bars  or  trapeze  are  affected  in  a 
marked  degree  by  the  slope  of  the  ground  underneath. 
In  other  words,  although  bars  and  trapeze  may  rest 
on  supports  that  are  perfectly  level,  yet  the  swing  of 
an  acrobat's  body  will  be  accelerated  over  a  downward 
slope  or  retarded  over  an  upward  slope.  So  true  is 
this  that  the  trapeze  performer  swinging  over  an  up- 
ward slope  will  often  require  all  his  strength  to  reach 
a  given  point,  while  over  a  downward  slope  he  must 
hold  back,  lest  he  reach  it  too  easily  and  suffer  a  colli- 
sion. Nevertheless,  the  swing  in  both  cases  is  pre- 
cisely the  same,  with  rigging  and  bars  fixed  to  a  true 
level. 

On  this  point  there  have  been  endless  arguments, 
and  many  persons  have  contended  that  acrobats  must 
imagine  all  this,  since  the  upward  or  downward  slope 
of  the  ground  under  a  trapeze  can  in  no  way  affect  the 
movement  of  that  trapeze.  I  fancy  the  wisdom  of 
such  people  is  like  that  of  the  professors  who  proved 
some  years  ago  that  it  is  a  physical  impossibility  for  a 
ball-player  to  "pitch  a  curve."  There  is  no  doubt  that 
trapeze  performers  are  obliged  to  take  serious  account 
of  the  ground's  slope  in  their  daily  work,  to  note  care- 


2/o  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

fully  the  amount  of  slope  and  the  direction  of  slope, 
and  to  take  their  precautions  accordingly.  If  they 
did  not  they  would  fail  in  their  feats.  Those  are  the 
facts  to  which  all  acrobats  bear  witness,  let  scientists 
explain  them  as  they  may. 

"Suppose  the  ground  slopes  to  one  side  or  the  other 
under  your  trapeze,"  I  asked  Ryan,  one  day.  "How 
does  that  affect  you?" 

"It  draws  you  down  the  slope,  and  makes  your  bar 
swing  that  way." 

"What  do  you  do  about  it?" 

"Sometimes  I  pull  the  bar  over  a  little  in  starting, 
so  as  to  balance  the  pull  of  the  hill ;  but  that  's  uncer- 
tain. It  's  better  to  fix  the  rigging  so  that  the  bar  is 
a  little  higher  on  the  downhill  side." 

Ryan  said  that  a  straight-ahead  downhill  slope  is  the 
worst  for  a  man,  because  he  is  apt  to  hold  back  too 
hard,  being  afraid  of  bumping  into  his  partner,  and  so 
he  does  n't  get  send  enough,  and  falls  short  of  his 
mark. 

"But  all  slopes  are  bad  for  us,"  he  said,  "and  we 
try  hard  to  get  our  things  put  up  over  level  ground." 

This  is  but  one  instance  of  the  jealous  care  shown 
by  acrobats  for  their  bars  and  rigging.  These  things 
belong  not  to  the  circus,  but  to  the  individual  per- 
formers, who  put  every  brace  and  knot  to  the  sever- 
est test.  For  the  high  bars  a  particular  kind  of  hick- 
ory is  used  with  a  core  of  steel  inside.  Every  mesh 
of  the  net  must  resist  a  certain  strain.  The  bars  them- 
selves must  be  neither  too  dry  nor  too  moist.  The 
light  must  come  in  a  certain  way,  and  a  dozen  other 
things.  Many  an  accident  has  come  through  the  fail- 
ure of  some  little  thing. 

This  much  is  certain,  that  acrobats  often  suffer  with- 
out serious  injury  falls  that  would  put  an  end  to  ordi- 


THE  AERIAL  ACROBAT  271 

nary  men.  Like  bareback  riders,  they  know  how  to 
fall,  this  art  consisting  chiefly  in  ' 'tucking  up"  into  a 
ball  and  hardening  the  muscles  so  that  the  shock 
is  eased.  Also  they  have  by  practice  acquired  the 
power  of  deciding  instantly  how  to  make  the  body  pro- 
tect itself  in  an  emergency. 

''Now,"  said  Ryan,  "I  '11  give  you  a  case  where  two 
of  us  did  some  quick  thinking,  and  it  helped  a  lot. 
We  were  with  a  circus  in  Australia,  making  a  night 
run.  It  was  somewhere  in  New  South  Wales,  and 
every  man  was  asleep  in  his  bunk.  First  thing  we 
knew,  bang,  rip,  tear!  a  drowsy  engineer  had  smashed 
into  us  and  taken  the  rear  truck  of  our  sleeper  clean 
off,  and  there  were  the  floor  timbers  of  our  car  bump- 
ing along  over  the  ties.  Wre  had  the  last  car. 

"Our  engineer  never  slowed  up,  and  our  floor  was 
going  into  kindling-wood  fast.  It  was  as  dark  as 
pitch,  and  nobody  said  a  word.  Fred  Reynolds  and  I 
— Reynolds  was  a  clown  acrobat — had  lower  berths 
right  at  the  end,  next  to  the  negro  porter,  and  I  don't 
say  we  escaped  because  we  were  acrobats,  but — well, 
this  is  what  we  did.  Fred  gave  one  mighty  leap,  just 
like  going  over  elephants,  and  cleared  the  whole  trail 
of  wreckage  that  was  pounding  along  behind  the  car 
and  landed  safe  on  the  track.  It  was  a  crazy  thing 
to  do,  in  my  opinion,  but  it  worked.  I  made  a  spring 
for  the  chandelier,  and  hung  there  until  the  train 
stopped.  And  afterward  I  found  my  trousers  back  on 
the  road-bed  with  the  legs  cut  clean  off,  and  I  guess 
my  own  legs  would  have  gone  the  same  way  if 
they  'd  been  there.  What  did  the  porter  do  ?  Oh,  he 
did  nothing,  and — and  he  was  killed." 


Ill 


IN    WHICH    THE   AUTHOR   TRIES    HIS    HAND    WITH 
PROFESSIONAL    TRAPEZE    PERFORMERS 

ON  this  particular  morning — it  was  a  damp  day  in 
February — I  had  been  watching  the  Potter  fam- 
ily, familiar  on  circus  posters  in  tights  and  spangles, 
at  their  practice  of  aerial  leaps,  when  Henry  Potter, 
who  is  husband,  father,  and  brother  of  the  others,  and 
chief  of  the  act,  suggested  that  if  I  wanted  a  vivid  idea 
of  what  it  was  to  work  on  the  flying  trapeze  I  might 
come  up  and  take  his  place  on  the  cradle  and  let  Tom 
chuck  the  "kid"  across  to  me  and  see  if  I  could  catch 
him. 

The  "kid"  was  Roy  Potter  (sometimes  Royetta,  when 
presented  in  feminine  trappings),  a  slender  lad  of  sev- 
enteen, who  had  just  been  doing  doubles  and  twisters 
and  half  turns,  leaping  with  shoot  and  graceful  curve 
from  brother  to  brother  up  there  in  mid-air  under  the 
rafters  of  this  moldering  old  skating-rink. 

"Go  ahead,"  he  urged;  "it  's  easy  enough.  All 
you  've  got  to  do  is  hang  by  your  knees,  and  it  can't 
hurt  the  boy,  for  he  '11  drop  in  the  net  if  you  miss  him. 
Besides,  we  '11  put  the  'mechanic'  on  him." 

The  "mechanic"  is  an  arrangement  of  waist  straps 
and  trailing  pulley-ropes  that  guard  a  gymnast  while 
he  is  learning  some  new  feat. 

Doubtless,  I  should  have  declined  this  amiable  offer 
had  I  taken  time  to  consider,  for  there  was  no  par- 
ticular appropriateness  in  a  man  who  knew  nothing 

272 


THE  AERIAL  ACROBAT  273 

about  the  trapeze,  except  such  rudiments  as  boys  of 
twelve  get  in  their  own  back  yards,  taking  part  off- 
hand in  a  leaping  performance  thirty  feet  above  ground 
with  "the  phenomenal  and  fearless  Potters" — I  quote 
the  circus  signs — "greatest  of  all  great  acrobatic 
aerials."  Yet  he  put  it  so  plausibly — I  certainly 
would  get  a  better  idea  of  the  thing — and  he  made  it 
out  so  simple — anybody  can  hang  by  his  knees — that 
I  said  all  right ;  I  would  go  up  on  the  cradle  and  catch 
the  "kid." 

This  cradle  is  composed  of  two  steel  bars,  about  a 
foot  apart,  that  are  held  rigid  by  tackle  and  wire  braces. 
You  climb  to  it  (after  emptying  your  pockets)  by  a 
swinging  ladder,  none  too  secure,  and,  seated  here,  look 
down  as  from  the  dome  of  a  circus  tent.  On  a  line 
with  you  are  other  cradles,  where  your  partners  are 
coolly  preparing  to  do  things.  You  glance  across  at 
them  anxiously,  then  down  at  the  net,  which  seems  a 
long  way  beneath. 

"Better  put  some  rosin  on  your  hands,"  sings  out 
Potter  from  the  ground,  where  he  is  arranging  the 
"mechanic"  lines. 

"It  's  in  that  little  bag  on  the  wire,"  calls  the  boy 
from  his  perch.  "Rub  it  along  your  wrists,  too ;  we  '11 
ketch  better." 

H'm !  We  will,  eh  ?  I  do  as  I  am  told,  and  realize 
that  even  the  trifling  movement  to  get  this  rosin-bag 
involves  a  certain  peril. 

"Now  lean  back,"  comes  the  word;  "catch  one  bar 
in  the  crotch  of  your  knees  and  brace  your  feet  under 
the  other.  That  's  right.  Hang  'way  down.  Stretch 
your  arms  out,  and  when  I  say,  'Now,'  pull  up  and 
reach  for  the  'kid' — you  '11  see  him  coming." 

Sure  enough,  although  the  blood  was  in  my  head,  I 
could  see  over  there  Tom  Potter's  red  shirt  and  the 

18 


274  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

boy's  blue  one  as  they  poised  for  the  swing.  Then 
Tom's  body  dropped  back,  and  he  swept  the  lad  at  full 
arm's  length,  through  a  half  circle,  and  let  him  go 
head  first,  cutting  the  air,  straight  at  me. 

"Now,"  cried  Harry,  and  I  reached  out  as  best  I 
could,  only  to  see  the  boy,  a  second  later,  floundering 
in  the  net  below  me.  And  they  all  were  laughing.  In 
trying  to  reach  one  way  I  had  actually  reached  the 
other,  and  withdrawn  my  arms  instead  of  extending 
them,  which  made  me  understand  better  than  an  hour 
of  words  that  a  man  hanging  head  down  at  a  height 
finds  his  muscles  as  hard  to  control  as  a  penman  writ- 
ing with  his  left  hand  for  the  first  time.  He  cannot 
even  see  straight  until  his  eyes  learn  to  gage  distances 
and  the  relation  of  things  presented  upside  down. 

With  some  pains  and  an  awkward  clutching  at  the 
braces  I  got  myself  back  into  a  sitting  position,  while 
Roy  climbed  again  good-naturedly  to  his  starting- 
cradle.  A  trapeze  performer  must  have  infinite  pa- 
tience. 

Again  we  tried  the  trick,  and  this  time,  as  I  hung 
expectant,  I  felt  my  wrists  clutched  tight,  and  there 
was  the  agile  leaper  swinging  back,  pendulum  fashion, 
from  my  arms,  then  forward,  then  back,  while  the  bar 
strained  under  my  knees. 

"Now,  throw  him !"  called  Harry.  "Stiffen  out  and 
chuck  him  back  to  Tom.  Now !" 

Alas !  I  made  a  bungle  of  it.  I  could  not  give  him 
send  enough,  and  the  boy,  falling  short  of  Tom's  arms, 
dangled  from  the  "mechanic"  lines  half-way  down  to 
the  net.  It  was  quite  plain  that  more  than  good  inten- 
tions are  needed  to  chuck  young  gentlemen  through 
flights  of  eighteen  feet.  I  was  feeling  decidedly  queer 
by  this  time — a  sort  of  half-way-over-the-Channel 
faintness,  and  could  imagine  what  it  must  be  to  work 


THE  AERIAL  ACROBAT  275 

up  here,  right  at  the  peak  of  a  "big-top"  tent,  under 
the  scorch  of  an  August  sun,  with  the  stifle  of  a  great 
audience  coming  up  from  below.  I  expressed  a  readi- 
ness to  descend. 

"Try  a  drop  into  the  net,"  suggested  Tom  Potter. 
"See,  hang  by  your  hands,  like  this.     Keep  your  legs 
together  and  lift  'em  out  stiff.     Then- 
Down  he  went,  and  landed  easily  on  his  shoulders. 

"Better  put  the  'mechanic'  on  him,"  said  Harry,  and 
presently  young  Roy  was  beside  me  on  the  cradle,  se- 
curing me  to  the  drop-lines  with  a  double  hitch. 

"You  want  to  be  sure  to  lift  yer  legs,"  he  remarked. 
"I  knew  a  feller  that  struck  the  net  straight  on  his  feet 
and  broke  his  knees." 

"Don't  you  worry,"  said  Harry;  "if  you  don't  fall 
right,  I  '11  hold  you  \vith  the  'mechanic.' ' 

Of  course,  when  a  man  has  started  at  this  sort  of 
thing  he  must  see  it  through,  so  I  hung  obediently  by 
my  hands,  lifted  my  legs,  and — 

"Now,"  cried  Harry,  and  instantly,  before  I  had 
time  to  think  or  note  sensations,  I  was  on  my  back  in 
the  net.  And  I  understood  what  a  terrible  problem 
it  is  for  a  gymnast,  falling  with  such  swiftness,  to 
turn  two  or  three  somersaults  in  the  air  and  land  with 
the  body  at  just  the  angle  of  safety,  for  a  shade  too 
much  one  way  may  mean  a  broken  leg,  and  a  shade 
too  much  the  other  way  an  injured  spine. 

For  some  time  after  my  aerial  experience  I  sat 
around  rather  limp  and  white,  giving  but  indifferent 
attention  to  the  breaking  in  of  young  Clarence  Potter, 
baby  of  the  family,  now  in  his  first  fortnight's  prac- 
tising. He  certainly  showed  a  game  spirit,  this  little 
fellow.  When  his  father  said,  "Jump,"  he  jumped,  and 
when  the  call  came  for  a  forward  somersault  across 
and  a  half  turn  he  went  at  it  like  a  veteran,  though  his 


2/6  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

wrists  must  have  burned  with  red  chafes  where  they 
caught  him.  Of  course  he  had  the  'mechanic'  on  all 
the  time. 

"We  have  to  handle  him  very  careful,"  said  his 
father,  "he  's  so  limber.  It  would  n't  take  much  to 
break  his  back.  But  he  '11  harden  up  soon.  People 
have  an  idea  that  gymnasts  are  supple-jointed.  That 's 
all  nonsense.  A  gymnast  won't  bend  as  much  as  an 
ordinary  business  man.  There  are  too  many  bunches 
of  muscles  all  over  him  that  keep  him  stiff.  See,  feel 
along  here."  He  prodded  my  hand  into  his  back  and 
sides.  "Not  big  muscles,  mind,  but  lots  of  small  ones. 
Say,  it  's  a  fine  thing  to  have  your  body  trained.  I 
don't  believe  there  's  a  healthier —  Hey,  there !  Keep 
those  legs  together.  Easy  now.  Good  boy!"  The 
little  fellow  had  made  a  pretty  turn  and  drop  to  the 
net,  and  was  striding  along  its  meshes,  beaming  at  the 
praise. 

"He  '11  make  a  gymnast,"  said  Potter,  "because  he  's 
got  a  head  on  him,  and  can  fix  his  mind  on  what  he  's 
doing.  Oh,  it  takes  more  than  body  to  make  a  great 
acrobat.  It  takes  brains,  for  one  thing,  and  heart. 
I  believe  I  '11  be  able  to  train  that  boy  so  he  can  do  a 
triple.  I  mean  do  it,  not  get  through  it  in  a  Lord- 
help-me  way.  Most  people  say  a  triple  can't  be  done 
for  a  regular  act  because  it  's  too  uncertain  and  too 
dangerous.  But  they  used  to  say  that  of  a  double. 
It  's  all  a  matter  of  taking  time  enough  in  the  practice. 
That  's  the  thing,  practice.  Why,  look  at  us.  We 
don't  open  for  months  yet,  but  we  're  up  here  every 
morning  all  through  the  winter  getting  our  act  down 
so  fine,  and  the  time  so  perfect,  that  when  summer 
comes  we  can't  fail." 

"How  do  you  mean,  getting  the  time  perfect?" 

"Why,  in  trapeze  work  everything  depends  on  judg- 


THE  AERIAL  ACROBAT  277 

ing  time.  Just  now  when  you  were  hanging  from  the 
cradle  you  could  n't  see  much,  could  you?  Well,  we 
can't,  either.  We  have  to  know  when  to  do  things 
by  feeling  the  time  they  take.  Say  it  's  a  long. double 
swing,  where  the  men  cross  a'nd  change  bars.  Each 
man  grabs  or  lets  go  at  the  second  or  part  of  a  second 
when  the  watch  inside  him  says  it  's  time  to  grab  or 
let  go.  That  's  the  only  watch  he  has,  and  it  's  the 
only  one  he  needs." 

"And  he  dives  by  the  sense  of  time?" 

"That  's  right." 

"And  does  triple  somersaults  by  the  sense  of  time?" 

"Certainly  he  does.  He  can't  see.  What  could 
you  see,  falling  and  whirling?  A  gymnast  has  no  dif- 
ferent eyes  from  any  other  man.  He  's  got  to  feel 
how  long  he  must  keep  on  turning.  And  it 's  good-by 
gymnast  if  his  feeling  is  a  quarter  of  a  second  out  of 
the  way." 

"Do  you  mean  that  literally?" 

Mr.  Potter  smiled.  "I  '11  give  you  a  case,  and  you 
can  judge  for  yourself.  There  was  a  fellow  named 
Johnnie  Howard  in  the  Barnum  show.  He  was  doing 
trapeze  work  with  the  famous  Dunham  family,  and 
was  very  ambitious  to  equal  Dunham  in  all  his  feats, 
which  was  a  large  contract,  for  Dunham  is  about  the 
finest  gymnast  in  the  world.  What  a  pretty  triple 
he  can  do,  clean  down  from  the  top  of  the  tent,  and 
land  right  every  time! 

"Well,  Howard  he  kept  trying  triples,  and  some- 
times he  got  'em  about  right  and  sometimes  he  did  n't. 
Dunham  told  him  he  'd  better  stick  to  doubles  until 
he  'd  had  more  practice,  but  Howard  would  n't  have 
it,  and  he  kept  right  on.  Prob'ly  he  thought  Dun- 
ham was  jealous  of  him.  Anyhow,  he  tried  a  triple 
one  night  at  Chicago,  in  the  Coliseum,  and  that  was 


278  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

the  last  triple  he  ever  did  try.  He  misjudged  his  time 
by  a  quarter  of  a  turn — that  is,  he  turned  three  somer- 
saults and  a  quarter  instead  of  just  three — and  struck 
the  net  so  that  he  twisted  his  spinal  column,  and  he 
died  a  few  weeks  later.  That  last  quarter  of  a  turn 
killed  him,  and  it  probably  did  n't  take  over  a  tenth 
of  a  second." 

Here  was  something  to  think  about.  Precision  of 
movement  to  tenths  of  a  second,  with  no  guidance  but 
a  man's  own  intuition  of  time,  and  a  life  depending 
on  it! 

"Can  a  man  regulate  the  speed  of  his  turning  while 
he  is  in  the  air?" 

"Certainly  he  can.  That 's  the  first  thing  you  learn. 
If  you  want  to  turn  faster  you  tuck  up  your  knees  and 
bend  your  head  so  the  chin  almost  touches  your  breast. 
If  you  want  to  turn  slo\ver  you  stretch  out  your  legs 
and  straighten  up  your  head.  The  main  thing  is  your 
head.  Whichever  way  you  point  that  your  body  will 
follow.  In  our  act  we  do  a  long  drop  from  the  top  of 
the  tent,  where  you  shoot  straight  down,  head  first,  for 
fifty  or  sixty  feet  and  never  move  a  muscle  until  you 
are  two  feet  over  the  net.  Then  you  duck  your  head 
everlastingly  quick  and  land  on  your  shoulders." 

I  asked  Mr.  Potter  how  long  a  drop  would  be  pos- 
sible for  a  gymnast.  He  thought  a  hundred  feet  might 
be  done  by  a  man  of  unusual  nerve,  but  he  pointed  out 
that  the  peril  increases  enormously  with  every  twenty 
feet  you  add,  say  to  a  drop  of  forty  feet.  When  you 
have  dropped  sixty  feet  you  are  falling  thirty-five 
miles  an  hour ;  when  you  have  dropped  eighty  feet  you 
are  falling  nearly  sixty  miles  an  hour.  And  so  on.  It 
seemed  incredible  that  a  man  shooting  down,  head 
first,  at  such  velocity  would  wait  before  turning  until 
only  two  feet  separated  him  from  the  net. 


CIRCUS    PROFESSIONALS    PRACTISING   A    FEAT    OF    BALANCING. 


28o  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

"It  can't  be,"  said  I,  "that  in  one  of  these  straight 
drops  a  gymnast  is  guided  only  by  his  sense  of  time?" 

Potter  hesitated  a  moment.  "You  mean  that  he 
uses  his  eyes  to  know  when  to  turn  ?  I  guess  he  does  a 
little,  although  it  is  mostly  sense  of  time." 

"You  would  n't  get  a  man  to  do  it  blindfolded?"  I 
suggested. 

"Not  a  straight  drop,  no;  but  a  drop  with  somer- 
saults, yes." 

"What,  two  somersaults  down  to  the  net,  blind- 
folded?" 

"Yes,  sir,  that  would  be  easy.  I  tell  you  a  man's 
eyes  don't  help  him  when  he  's  turning  in  the  air. 
Why,  Tom  and  I  would  throw  that  boy  of  mine  (Roy- 
etta)  across  from  one  to  the  other,  he  turning  doubles, 
just  the  same  whether  he  was  blindfolded  or  not.  It 
would  n't  make  any  difference. 

"I  '11  tell  you  another  thing,"  he  continued,  "that 
may  surprise  you.  It  's  possible  for  a  fine  gymnast 
to  swing  from  a  bar,  say  sixty  feet  above  the  net,  turn 
a  back  somersault — what  we  call  a  cast  somersault — 
then  shoot  straight  down  head  first  for  thirty  feet  and 
then  tuck  up  and  turn  a  forward  somersault,  landing 
on  his  shoulders.  I  could  n't  do  it  myself  ever  since  I 
got  hurt  down  in  Mexico,  but  Tom  Hanlon  could.  I 
mention  this  to  show  what  control  a  man  can  get  over 
his  body  in  the  air.  He  can  make  it  turn  one  way, 
then  go  straight,  and  then  turn  the  other  way." 

After  proper  expression  of  wonder  at  this  statement,  I 
asked  Mr.  Potter  if  something  might  not  go  wrong  with 
this  wonderful  automatic  time  machine  that  a  gym- 
nast carries  within  himself.  Of  course  there  might, 
he  said,  and  that  is  why  there  is  such  need  of  practice. 
Let  a  man  neglect  his  trapeze  for  a  couple  of  months, 
and  he  would  be  almost  like  a  beginner.  And  even 


THE  AERIAL  ACROBAT  281 

the  best  gymnasts,  he  admitted,  men  in  the  pink  of 
training1,  are  liable  to  sudden  and  unaccountable  dis- 
turbances of  mind  or  heart  that  make  them  for  the 
moment  unequal  to  their  most  familiar  feats. 

"I  11  tell  you  what  accounts  for  the  death  of  most 
gymnasts,"  he  went  on.  "It  's  changing  their  minds 
while  they  're  in  the  air.  That  's  what  we  call  it,  but 
it  's  only  a  name.  Nobody  knows  just  what  happens 
when  a  gymnast  changes  his  mind — I  mean  what  hap- 
pens inside  him.  What  happens  outside  is  that  he  's 
usually  killed. 

"Now  there  was  Billy  Batcheller.  He  was  a  fine 
leaper,  and  could  do  his  two  somersaults  over  four  ele- 
phants or  eight  horses  with  the  prettiest  lift  you  ever 
saw.  He  could  do  it  easy.  But  one  day — we  were 
showing  out  west  with  the  Reynolds  circus — as  he 
came  down  the  leaping-run  he  struck  the  board  wrong, 
somehow,  and  in  the  turn  he  changed  his  mind ;  instead 
of  doing  a  double  he  did  one  and  a  half  and  shot  over 
the  last  horse  straight  for  the  ground,  head  first.  One 
second  more  and  he  was  a  dead  man;  he  would  have 
broken  his  neck  sure,  but  I  saw  him  coming  and  caught 
him  so  with  my  right  arm,  took  all  the  skin  off  under 
his  chin,  and  left  the  print  of  my  hand  on  his  breast 
for  weeks.  But  it  saved  him.  And  the  queer  thing 
was  he  never  could  explain  it — none  of  them  ever  can ; 
he  just  changed  his  mind.  So  did  Ladell,  who  used 
to  do  doubles  from  high  bars  down  to  a  pedestal.  He 
made  his  leap  one  night,  just  as  usual — it  was  at 
Toronto,  in  1896,  I  think — and  as  he  turned  he 
changed  his  mind,  and  I  forget  how  he  landed,  but  it 
killed  him  all  right." 

"Did  you  ever  have  an  experience  of  this  kind  your- 
self?" I  asked. 


282  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

"Not  exactly,"  he  answered,  "and  I  'm  thankful  I 
have  n't,  but  I  came  near  it  once  in  Chicago.  It  was 
the  night  after  Howard  got  hurt,  and  I  guess  fear — 
just  plain,  every-day  fear — was  at  the  bottom  of  my 
feeling.  My  wife  and  I  were  doing  an  act  sixty  feet 
above  the  ground,  and  without  a  net.  I  would  hang 
by  my  hands  from  a  couple  of  loops  at  the  top  of  the 
Coliseum,  and  she  would  hang,  head  down,  from  my 
feet,  her  ankles  locked  across  mine,  just  a  natural  lock- 
ing of  the  feet,  with  no  fastenings  and  only  ordinary 
performing  shoes. 

"When  I  had  her  that  way,  a  man  below  would  pull 
a  drag-rope  and  get  us  swinging  higher  and  higher, 
until  finally  we  would  come  right  up  to  a  horizontal. 
I  tell  you  it  was  a  hair-raising  thing  to  see,  but  until 
this  night  I  had  never  thought  much  about  the  danger. 
I  thought  of  it  now,  though,  as  I  remembered  How- 
ard's fall,  and  I  got  so  nervous  for  my  wife  that  I  felt 
sure  something  terrible  was  going  to  happen.  I  was 
just  about  in  the  state  where  a  man  starts  his  act  and 
can't  go  through  with  it,  where  he  changes  his  mind. 
And  you  '11  be  surprised  to  hear  what  gave  me  heart 
to  go  on." 

"What  was  it?" 

"It  was  the  music,  sir ;  and  ever  since  that  night  I  've 
understood  why  some  generals  send  their  soldiers  into 
battle  with  bands  playing.  As  we  stood  by  the  dress- 
ing-room entrance  waiting  to  go  on,  it  seemed  as  if  I 
could  n't  do  it,  but  when  I  heard  the  crash  of  that 
circus  band  calling  us,  and  came  out  into  the  glare  of 
light  and  heard  the  applause,  just  roars  of  it,  why,  I 
forgot  everything  except  the  pride  of  my  business,  and 
up  we  went,  net  or  no  net,  and  we  never  did  our  toe 
swing  better  than  that  night.  Just  the  same,  I  'd 


THE  AERIAL  ACROBAT  283 

had  my  warning,  and  I  soon  got  another  act  instead 
of  that  one ;  and—  He  hesitated.  "Well,  sir,  to-day 
I  would  n't  take  my  wife  up  and  do  that  toe  swing  the 
way  we  vised  to,  not  for  a  million  dollars.  And  yet 
she  's  crazy  to  do  it." 


IV 


SOME    REMARKABLE    FALLS    AND    NARROW    ESCAPES 
OF    FAMOUS    ATHLETES 

AS  we  finished  our  talk,  Mr.  Potter  asked  me  to  call 
some  evening  at  their  rooms,  on  Tenth  Street, 
and  see  a  family  of  trapeze  performers  in  private  life. 
I  was  glad  to  accept  this  invitation,  and  looked  in  upon 
them  a  day  or  two  later.  Like  the  other  figures  in 
these  studies  of  thrilling  lives,  they  presented  a  mod- 
est, simple  picture  in  their  home  circle.  There  if 
nothing  in  the  externals  of  lion-tamers,  steeple-climb- 
ers, divers,  balloonists,  or  gymnasts  to  betray  theii 
unusual  calling.  Nor  is  there  any  heroic  sign  in  eye  or 
voice  or  bearing.  They  are  plain,  unpretentious  folk, 
for  the  most  part,  who  do  these  things  and  say  little 
about  them. 

In  one  room  were  Tom  and  Royetta  playing  check- 
ers, while  Clarence,  the  "kid,"  weary,  no  doubt,  from 
the  morning's  practice,  lay  on  a  bed  storing  up  resist- 
ance against  the  next  day's  shoots  and  twisters.  In 
a  room  adjoining  were  Mr.  Potter  himself  and  Mrs. 
Potter  enjoying  the  call  of  a  lady  acrobat,  one  of  the 
famed  Livingstons,  trick  bicyclists. 

As  soon  as  was  fitting,  I  put  the  old  question  to  Mr. 
Potter,  the  question  that  always  interests  me,  how  it 
happened  that  he  became  a  gymnast,  and  he  went  back 
to  his  Western  boyhood  and  the  early  longings  that 
possessed  him  to  be  a  performer  in  the  air.  Plainly 
he  was  born  with  the  gymnast  instinct,  and  he  ran 

284 


THE  AERIAL  ACROBAT 


away  from  home  to  follow  his  heart's 
desire.  Then  he  told  us  how  at  sev- 
enteen he  was  traveling  with  a  ten- 
cent  show,  doing  a  single  trapeze  act 
in  the  ring  and  an  out-of-door  free 
exhibition  of  tight-rope  walking 
from  canvas  top  to  ground.  Once 
he  went  at  a  difficult  feat  so  eagerly 
— he  was  always  his  own  teacher— 
that  he  fell  clean  off  a  trapeze  sixty 
feet  above  ground,  and  by  some  kind 
providence  that  watches  over  boys 
escaped  serious  injury. 

"It  's  queer  about  falls,"  said  Mr. 
Potter.  "It  's  often  the  little  ones 
that  kill.  Now,  there  I  fell  sixty 
feet,  and  you  might  say  it  did  n't 
hurt  me  at  all.  Another  time,  show- 
ing in  Yucatan,  I  fell  only  forty  feet, 
and  smashed  two  ribs.  And  the 
worst  fall  I  ever  had  was  fifteen  feet 
at  the  Olympia,  in  London.  I  was  driving  four  horses 
in  a  tandem  race,  and  was  thrown  straight  on  my  head. 
That  time  I  nearly  broke  my  neck." 


286  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

"Twenty-five  feet  is  my  best  fall,"  put  in  Mrs.  Pot- 
ter, smiling.  "I  was  doing  an  act  on  the  flying  rings, 
and  one  of  'em  broke.  Remember  that,  Harry?" 

His  face  showed  how  well  he  remembered  it.  "Per- 
haps you  won't  believe  this,"  he  said,  "but  when  I  saw 
her  falling  I  could  n't  move.  I  was  'tending  her  in 
the  ring,  and  was  n't  ten  feet  from  where  she  struck. 
I  could  have  caught  her  and  saved  her  if  my  legs  would 
only  have  moved.  But  there  they  were  frozen,  sir, 
and  I  just  had  to  stand  still  and  see  my  wife  come 
down  smash  on  her  head.  Pretty  tough,  was  n't  it? 
She  lay  unconscious  for  two  days — that  was  at  Mo- 
nette,  Missouri.  Oh,  yes,  I  remember  it!" 

I  asked  Mrs.  Potter  if  she  had  ever  been  afraid, 
and  she  shook  her  head.  Never  once,  not  even  at 
Chicago,  in  the  perilous  toe  swing,  when  even  the  other 
gymnasts  told  her  she  would  certainly  be  killed.  She 
knew  her  husband  would  hold  her  safe,  and  she  really 
enjoyed  that  toe  swing  more  than  any  act  they  ever 
did. 

"I  '11  tell  you  this,  though,"  she  admitted,  "I  would 
be  afraid  to  do  these  things  with  any  one  except  my 
husband." 

"Yes,  and  I  'd  be  afraid  to  have  her,"  added  Potter. 
"Why,  down  in  Mexico,  when  I  broke  my  ribs,  there 
was  a  man — a  fine  gymnast;  too — who  offered  to  take 
my  place  so  we  would  n't  lose  our  salary,  but  every 
time  I  saw  him  practice  with  my  wife  it  made  me  so 
nervous  I  called  it  off  and  let  the  salary  go." 

In  spite  of  these  manifest  hazards,  Potter  insists  that 
there  is  no  healthier  life  than  a  gymnast  leads.  "We 
never  are  ill,"  he  said,  "we  never  take  cold,  we  travel 
through  all  sorts  of  fever-stricken  countries  and  never 
catch  anything,  and  we  always  feel  good.  Look  at 
that  boy  of  mine!  He  's  seventeen  years  old,  and 


THE  AERIAL  ACROBAT  287 

he  's  got  a  chest  on  him  like  a  man.  Thirty-eight 
inches  is  what  it  measures.  Why,  I  can't  find  a  coat 
that  '11  fit  him." 

He  went  on  to  point  out  some  plain  advantages,  in 
addition  to  health,  that  ordinary  citizens  might  derive 
from  a  moderate  knowledge  of  trapeze  work.  In  a 
fire,  for  instance,  a  man  so  trained  would  have  little 
difficulty  in  saving  himself  and  others  by  climbing  and 
swinging.  And  firemen  themselves  would  double  their 
efficiency  by  regular  practice  on  high  bars. 

Again,  in  case  of  a  runaway,  a  man  familiar  with 
the  trapeze  knows  how  and  when  to  spring  for  the 
bridle  of  a  plunging  horse.  Or  should  he  find  himself 
almost  under  the  wheels  of  a  trolley-car,  he  could  leap 
for  the  platform  rail  and  swing  up  to  safety. 

"I  '11  give  you  a  case,"  said  Potter,  "where  the  train- 
ing we  get  helped  a  good  deal.  It  was  a  season  when 
I  was  working  with  the  Barnum  outfit ;  we  were  show- 
ing in  the  East,  and  during  the  hippodrome  races  a 
little  girl  got  away  from  her  people  somehow,  and  the 
first  thing  anybody  knew,  there  she  was  out  on  the 
track,  with  three  four-horse  chariots  not  a  hundred 
feet  off,  and  coming  on  a  dead  run.  As  the  crowd 
saw  the  child  they  gave  a  great  'UfF  in  fear,  and  lots 
of  women  screamed.  It  was  n't  in  human  power  to 
stop  those  horses,  and  it  seemed  as  if  the  little  tot 
must  be  killed. 

"She  was  about  half-way  across  the  track  when  I 
started  for  her.  Lots  of  men  would  have  started  just 
as  I  did,  but  very  few  would  have  gone  at  just  the 
right  angle  to  save  her.  Most  men  would  have  tried 
to  run  straight  across,  but  I  was  sure  the  horses  would 
trample  me  and  the  child,  too,  if  I  tried  that.  So  I 
took  her  on  a  slant,  running  across  and  away  from 
the  horses,  and  I  caught  her  little  body  as  a  gym- 


288  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

nast  knows  how,  did  n't  waste  any  time  at  it,  and  then 
— hoo ! — we  were  over,  with  the  breath  of  those  horses 
on  our  necks.  If  it  had  n't  been  for  the  practice  I  've 
had  judging  time  and  distance,  we  'd  both  have  been 
killed  that  trip." 

I  come  now  to  another  occasion  when  I  spent  two 
profitable  hours  with  the  St.  Belmos,  husband  and 
wife,  who  for  years  past  and  in  many  parts  of  the 
world  have  appeared  in  a  trapeze  act  that  calls  for  the 
greatest  nerve  and  precision  of  movement.  As  a  cli- 
max to  this  act,  St.  Belmo  makes  a  leap  and  swing 
of  forty  feet  over  his  audience,  springing  head  first 
through  a  circle  of  knives  and  fire  that  barely  lets  his 
body  pass,  then  catching  a  suspended  trapeze  that 
breaks  away  at  his  touch  and  carries  him  on  in  a  long 
sweep,  then  leaping  again,  feet  first,  from  this  flying 
bar  through  a  paper  balloon,  where  he  holds  by  his 
arms  and  drops  swiftly  thirty-five  feet  to  the  ground. 

I  was  surprised  to  find  the  hero  of  this  perilous  feat 
rather  the  reverse  of  athletic  in  appearance.  St.  Belmo 
struck  me  as  a  pale,  thin,  almost  sickly  man.  Yet  I 
judge  it  would  fare  ill  with  any  one  who  tried  to  im- 
pose upon  him  as  an  invalid.  Over  that  spare  form 
are  hard,  tireless  muscles,  and  for  years  to  come  St. 
Belmo  feels  equal  to  leaping  this  obstacle  of  blades 
and  flame. 

Most  people,  I  suppose,  in  watching  this  act  would 
imagine  the  knives  to  be  of  wood  and  tinsel,  but  I  saw 
that  they  were  of  steel,  and  sharp,  heavy  double-edged 
knives  a  foot  long,  murderous  weapons  made  by  St. 
Belmo  himself  out  of  old  saws.  And  fifteen  of  these, 
with  points  turned  inward,  form  the  heart  through 
which  this  gaunt  yet  rather  genial  gymnast  shoots  his 
way. 


THROUGH   A   PAPER   BALLOON   AT  THE   END   OF  A  GREAT   FEAT. 


290  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

I  asked  St.  Belmo  about  the  accidents  that  he 
had  suffered.  Had  he  ever  struck  the  knives  when 
leaping  through  ?  Yes,  again  and  again.  He  had  torn 
his  clothes  to  tatters  on  them,  and  Jined  his  body  with 
scars.  But  that  was  years  ago,  when  he  was  learning. 
Now  he  never  touched  the  knives.  He  could  leap 
through  them,  eyes  shut,  as  surely  as  a  man  puts  a 
spoon  in  his  mouth  without  striking  his  teeth. 

How  about  falls  in  the  air?  Well,  he  remembered 
two  in  particular,  one  at  Syracuse,  where  he  missed 
the  trapeze  because  some  one  was  careless  in  fastening 
a  snap-hook  that  held  it,  and  when  he  came  through 
the  blades  and  flames  head  first,  and  reached  for  the 
bar,  the  bar  had  swung  away,  and  he  plunged  on 
smash  down  to  the  ground,  and  broke  both  legs. 

"Did  n't  you  look  for  the  bar  before  you  made  the 
leap?"  I  questioned. 

He  shook  his  head.  "I  never  see  the  bar  for  the 
dazzle  of  fire.  I  know  where  it  must  be,  and  leap  for 
that  place.  If  it  is  n't  there,  why—  He  pointed 
down  to  his  legs,  and  smiled  ruefully. 

He  had  another  fall  at  Seattle,  where  he  came 
down  thirty-five  feet  and  put  both  his  knees  out  of 
joint,  all  because  he  was  thinking  of  something  else  as 
he  shot  toward  the  balloon,  and  forgot  to  throw  out  his 
arms  and  catch  in  the  hoop.  It  was  exactly  the  case 
of  a  man  who  might  walk  over  the  edge  of  a  house- 
top through  absent-mindedness. 

"Ever  have  a  feeling  of  fear?"  I  asked. 

"I  don't  know  as  you  'd  call  it  fear  exactly,"  he 
began. 

"Yes,  it  was  fear,  too,"  put  in  his  wife,  teasing. 
"I  Ve  seen  your  knees  shake  so  up  on  the  pedestal  that 
you  almost  tumbled  off." 

"No  wonder  my  knees  shook,"  protested  St.  Belmo ; 


THE  AERIAL  ACROBAT  291 

"they  've  been  out  of  joint  times  enough.  Naturally, 
after  an  accident  you  feel  a  little  queer  for  a  while; 
but  I  Ml  own  up  there  was  once  I  felt  afraid,  and  it 
was  n't  long  ago,  either." 

"I  know,"  said  his  wife;  "up  at  the  Twenty-second 
Regiment  Armory." 

"That  's  right;  it  was  in  December.  Remember 
when  that  bicycle-diver  was  killed?  His  name  was 
Stark?  Poor  chap!  He  was  a  friend  of  ours,  and 
we  were  there  when  it  happened.  You  know,  he  got 
too  much  speed  on  the  incline,  and  struck  the  far 
edge  of  the  tank  instead  of  the  water.  That  was  in 
the  afternoon,  and  the  same  night  we  had  to  go  on 
and  do  our  act.  I  looked  at  that  tank,  and  then 
I  said,  'Boys,  I  ?m  leary  about  this,  but  I  'm  going  to 
do  my  act.  I  '11  come  down  somehow,  boys;  you 
watch  me.'  Honest,  I  thought  I  was  going  to  be  killed, 
but  I  got  through  all  right." 

Then  he  explained  that  the  greatest  danger  in  his 
act  is  neither  at  the  knives  nor  at  the  balloon,  but  in 
the  swift  drop  after  the  balloon  with  the  hoop  under 
his  arms.  This  hoop,  as  it  goes  down,  winds  up  a 
spring  overhead  that  acts  as  a  break  on  the  fall,  though 
a  very  slight  one.  Just  before  St.  Belmo  reaches  the 
floor  he  lifts  his  arms  above  the  hoop  and  drops 
through  it  to  the  ground,  but  he  must  do  that  at  pre- 
cisely the  right  moment,  or  he  will  suffer  accident. 
If  he  drops  through  too  soon  he  will  strike  too  hard, 
and  may  break  his  legs.  If  he  does  not  drop  through 
soon  enough,  the  hoop  may  jerk  his  arms  out  of  the 
sockets.  And  in  spite  of  this  formidable  alternative 
St.  Belmo  assured  me  that  for  more  than  a  dozen 
years  now  he  has  made  this  drop  continually,  and 
never  failed  once. 

Think  of  a  calling  that  requires  a  man  to  steer  per- 


292  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

petually,  by  the  closest  fraction  of  a  shave,  between  a 
pair  of  broken  legs  and  a  pair  of  dislocated  arms! 
Fancy  such  an  alternative  as  part  of  the  regular  after- 
dinner  routine!  And  then  consider  what  marvelous 
precision  must  be  in  these  bodies  and  minds  of  ours 
when  a  man  can  face  such  a  hazard  for  years  and  never 
come  to  grief. 


THE  WILD-BEAST  TAMER 

i 

WE    VISIT    A    QUEER    RESORT    FOR    CIRCUS    PEOPLE 
AND    TALK    WITH    A    TRAINER    OF    ELEPHANTS 

WELL  down  on  Fourth  Avenue,  below  the  bird- 
fanciers,  the  rat-catchers,  the  antique-shops,  and 
the  dingy  hotels  where  lion-tamers  put  up,  is  "Billy's" 
place,  the  great  rendezvous  of  the  country  for  circus 
folk,  and  here  any  afternoon  or  evening,  especially  in 
the  dull  winter-time,  you  may  find  heroes  of  the  flying 
trapeze,  bereft  of  show-ring  trappings,  playing  mo- 
notonous euchre  with  keepers  of  the  cages,  or  sitting  in 
convivial  and  reminiscent  groups  that  include  every- 
thing from  the  high-salaried  star  down  to  some  humble 
tooter  in  the  band  at  present  looking  for  a  job.  All 
kinds  of  acrobats  come  to  "Billy's,"  all  kinds  of  animal 
men,  everybody  who  has  to  do  with  a  show,  barring 
the  owners.  If  a  Norwegian  wrestler  wants  to  get 
track  of  an  Egyptian  giant  he  goes  to  "Billy's."  If 
an  elephant-trainer  needs  a  new  helper  he  goes  to 
"Billy's."  It  is  at  once  a  club,  a  haven,  a  post-office, 
and  a  general  intelligence  bureau  for  members  of  this 
wandering  and  fascinating  profession. 

It  was  my  fortune  recently  to  spend  an  evening  at 
"Billy's,"  and  I  had  as  companion  a  veteran  circus  man, 
able  to  explain  things.  After  taking  in  the  externals, 
which  were  commonplace  enough  save  for  "big-top" 
celebrities  ranged  along  the  walls  in  tiers  of  photo- 

293 


294  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

graphs,  we  sat  us  down  where  a  man  in  a  blue  shirt  was 
telling  how  a  lioness  and  three  cubs  got  out  of  a  cage 
somewhere  one  afternoon  just  after  the  performance. 
It  seems  one  of  the  cubs  had  been  playing  with  a  loose 
bolt,  and  the  first  thing  anybody  knew,  there  they  were, 
all  four  of  them,  skipping  about  free  in  the  menagerie 
tent.  The  story  detailed  various  efforts  to  get  the 
lioness  back  into  her  cage — prodding,  lassoing,  shout- 
ing— and  the  total  failure  of  these  because  she  would 
neither  leave  her  cubs  nor  let  them  be  taken  from  her. 

Finally,  the  situation  grew  serious,  for  the  evening 
performance  was  coming  on,  and  it  was  quite  sure 
there  would  be  no  audience  with  an  uncaged  lioness  on 
the  premises.  So  it  became  a  matter  of  business  in  this 
wise — a  lioness  worth  a  few  hundred  dollars  against 
an  audience  worth  a  couple  of  thousand.  Word  was 
sent  to  the  head  of  the  show,  and  back  came  the  order, 
"Kill  her."  In  vain  the  keeper  pleaded  for  one  more 
trial ;  he  would  risk  a  hand-to-hand  struggle  with  hot 
irons.  The  head  of  the  show  said,  "No" ;  the  lioness 
was  desperate,  and  he  would  n't  have  his  men  expose 
their  lives.  It  was  a  case  of  "Shoot  her,  and  do  it 
quick." 

Of  course,  that  settled  it ;  they  did  shoot  her,  and  as 
the  blue-shirted  man  described  the  execution  I  was 
impressed  by  his  tenderness  in  speaking  of  that  poor, 
defiant  mother,  and  then  of  the  three  little  cubs  that 
"howled  for  her  a  whole  month,  sir,  and  looked  so  sad 
it  made  us  boys  feel  like  murderers,  blamed  if  it 
did  n't!" 

Another  man,  with  steely  gray  eyes  and  a  stubble 
of  beard,  ventured  the  opinion  that  they  must  have  had 
a  pretty  poor  quality  of  gumption  in  that  outfit,  or 
somebody  would  have  got  the  lioness  into  her  cage. 
He  was  mighty  sure  George  Conklin  would  have  done 


HOW   THE   LIONESS   WAS   CAPTURED   ON   THE   OPEN   PRAIRIE. 


296  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

it.  George  was  over  in  Europe  now  handling  big  cats 
for  the  Barnum  show.  There  was  n't  anything  George 
did  n't  know  about  lions. 

"Why,  I  '11  give  you  a  case,''  said  he.  "We  were 
showing  out  in  Kansas,  and  one  night  a  cage  fell  off  the 
circus  train,  became  unlashed  or  something  as  she 
swung  round  a  curve,  and  when  we  stuck  our  heads 
out  of  the  sleeper  there  were  a  pair  of  greenish,  burn- 
ing eyes  coming  down  the  side  of  the  track,  and  we 
could  hear  a  ruh-ruh-r-r-r-ruh — something  between  a 
bark  and  a  roar — that  did  n't  cheer  us  up  any,  you  'd 
better  believe.  Then  George  Conklin  yelled,  'By  the 
Lord,  it  's  Mary!  Come  on,  boys;  we  mtist  get  her!' 
and  out  we  went.  Mary  was  a  full-grown  lioness,  and 
she  was  loose  there  in  the  darkness,  out  on  a  bare 
prairie,  without  a  house  or  a  fence  anywhere  for  miles." 

"Hold  on,"  said  I ;  "how  did  your  circus  train  hap- 
pen to  stop  when  the  cage  fell  off?" 

With  indulgent  smile,  he  explained  that  a  circus 
train  running  at  night  always  has  guards  on  the  watch, 
who  wave  quick  lanterns  to  the  engineer  in  any  emer- 
gency. 

"Well,"  continued  the  man,  "George  Conklin  had 
that  cage  fixed  up  and  the  lioness  safe  inside  within 
forty  minutes  by  the  clock.  Do?  Why,  it  was  easy 
enough.  We  unrolled  about  a  hundred  yards  of  side- 
wall  tenting,  and  carried  it  toward  the  lioness.  It 
was  a  line  of  men,  holding  up  a  length  of  canvas  so  that 
it  formed  a  long,  moving  fence.  And  every  man  car- 
ried a  flaming  kerosene  torch.  There  was  a  picture  to 
remember,  that  line  of  heads  over  the  canvas  wall,  and 
the  flaring  lights  gradually  circling  around  the  lioness, 
who  backed,  growling  and  switching  her  tail — backed 
away  from  the  fire,  until  presently,  as  we  closed  in,  we 
had  her  in  the  mouth  of  a  funnel  of  canvas,  with 


THE   WILD-BEAST   TAMER  297 

torches  everywhere,  except  just  at  her  back,  where  the 
open  cage  was.  Then  Conklin  spoke  sharp  to  her,  just 
as  if  they  were  in  the  ring,  and  snapped  his  whip,  and 
the  next  thing  Miss  Mary  was  safe  behind  the  bars. 
It  was  a  pretty  neat  job,  I  can  tell  you." 

During  this  talk  a  broad-shouldered  man  had  joined 
the  group,  and  my  companion  whispered  that  he  was 
"Bill"  Newman,  the  famous  elephant-trainer.  Mr. 
Newman  at  once  showed  an  interest  in  the  discussion, 
and  agreed  that  there  are  times  when  you  can  do  no- 
thing with  an  animal  but  kill  it. 

"Now,  there  was  old  Albert,"  said  he,  "a  fine  ten- 
foot  tusker,  that  I  'd  seen  grow  up  from  a  baby,  and  I 
was  fond  of  him,  too,  but  I  had  to  kill  him.  It  was  in 
'85,  and  we  were  showing  in  New  Hampshire.  Al- 
bert had  been  cranky  for  a  long  time — never  with  me, 
but  with  the  other  men — and  in  Nashua  he  slammed  a 
keeper  against  the  ground  so  hard  that  he  died  the  next 
morning  just  as  we  were  coming  into  Keene.  That 
settled  it,  and  at  the  afternoon  performance  Mr.  Hutch- 
inson  announced  in  the  ring  that  we  had  an  elephant 
on  our  hands  under  sentence  of  death,  and  he  was  will- 
ing to  turn  this  elephant  over  to  the  local  rifle  corps 
if  they  felt  equal  to  the  execution.  You  see,  he  had 
heard  there  was  a  company  of  sharpshooters  in  Keene, 
and  it  struck  him  this  was  a  good  way  to  be  rid  of  a 
bad  elephant,  and  get  some  advertising  at  the  same 
time. 

"Well,  those  Keene  riflemen  were  n't  going  to  be 
bluffed  by  a  showman.  They  said  to  bring  on  the  ele- 
phant, and  they  'd  take  care  of  him.  So,  after  the 
performance  I  led  old  Albert  back  to  a  piece  of  woods 
behind  the  tents,  and  we  hitched  tackle  to  his  four 
legs  and  stretched  him  out  between  four  trees  so  he 
could  n't  move,  and  then  the  rifle  corps  lined  up  about 


298  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

twelve  paces  off,  ready  to  shoot.  That  elephant  knew 
he  was  going  to  die ;  yes,  sir,  he  knew  it  perfectly  well, 
but  he  was  a  lot  cooler  than  some  of  those  riflemen. 
Why,  there  was  one  fellow  on  the  end  of  the  line  shak- 
ing so  he  could  hardly  aim.  You  see,  they  were  afraid 
old  Albert  would  break  loose  and  come  at  'em  if  they 
only  wounded  him. 

"  'Do  you  men  know  where  to  shoot?'  I  called  out. 

"  'We  're  going  to  shoot  at  his  head,'  answered  the 
captain. 

"  'All  right,'  said  I ;  'you  'd  better  send  for  lanterns 
and  more  ammunition.  You  're  liable  to  be  shooting 
here  all  night.' 

'Then,  where  shall  we  shoot?'  asked  the  captain. 

"  That  depends,'  I  answered.  'If  you  can  send 
your  bullets  straight  into  his  eye  at  a  forty-five  degree 
tip-slant,  you  '11  fix  him  all  right.  But  if  you  don't  hit 
his  eye  you  can  shoot  the  rest  of  his  head  full  of  holes, 
and  he  won't  care.  You  've  got  to  reach  his  brain, 
and  that  's  a  little  thing  in  where  I  'm  telling  you.' 

"This  made  the  captain  do  some  thinking,  for  Al- 
bert looked  awful  big  and  his  eye  looked  awful  small, 
and  they  did  n't  want  to  bungle  the  job.  'Well,'  said 
he,  'is  there  any  other  place  we  can  aim  at  except  his 
eye?' 

"  'Aim  here,'  I  told  him,  and  I  drew  a  circle  with  a 
piece  of  chalk  just  back  of  his  left  foreleg,  a  circle  about 
as  big  as  your  hand.  When  a  man  has  cut  up  as  many 
elephants  as  I  have  he  knows  where  the  heart  is.  But 
most  men  don't. 

"After  this  there  wras  a  hush,  while  the  whole  crowd 
held  its  breath,  and  old  Albert  looked  at  me  out  of  his 
little  eyes  as  much  as  to  say,  'So  you  're  going  to  let 
'em  do  me  after  all,  are  you  ?'  and  then  came  the  sharp 
command,  'Ready,  fire!'  and  thirty-two  rifle-balls 


THE   WILD-BEAST   TAMER  299 

started  for  that  chalk-mark.  And  how  many  do  you 
think  got  there?  Five  out  of  thirty-two;  I  counted 
'em,  but  five  did  the  business.  Poor  old  Albert  dropped 
without  a  sound  or  a  struggle."  Newman  sighed  at 
the  memory. 

'Ms  n't  there  some  exaggeration,"  I  asked,  "in  what 
you  said  about  shooting  an  elephant  full  of  holes  with- 
out killing  him?" 

"Exaggeration !"  answered  Newman.  "Not  a  bit 
of  it.  Why,  there  was  an  elephant  named  Samson 
with  the  Cole  show,  and  he  got  loose  once  in  a  town  out 
in  Idaho  and  ran  through  the  streets  crazy  mad,  killing 
horses,  smashing  into  houses,  ripping  the  whole  place 
wide  open.  Well,  sir,  they  shot  at  him  with  Winches- 
ters, revolvers,  shot-guns,  every  darned  thing  they  had, 
until  that  elephant  was  full  of  lead,  but  he  went  off 
all  right  the  next  day,  and  never  seemed  any  the  worse 
for  it  up  to  the  day  when  he  was  burned  to  death  with 
the  Barnum  show  at  Bridgeport." 

The  mention  of  this  catastrophe  reminded  me  of  re- 
ports that  wild  beasts  in  a  burning  menagerie  are  silent 
before  the  flames,  and  I  asked  Mr.  Newman  if  he  be- 
lieved it. 

"No,  sir,"  said  he;  "it  is  n't  true.  I  was  in  Bridge- 
port when  the  Barnum  show  burned  up,  and  I  never 
heard  such  roaring  and  screaming.  It  was  awful. 
Even  the  rhinoceros,  which  can't  make  much  noise,  was 
running  around  the  yard  grunting  and  squealing,  with 
flames  four  feet  high  shooting  up  from  his  back  and 
sides.  You  see,  a  rhinoceros  is  almost  solid  fat,  and 
as  soon  as  he  caught  fire  he  burned  like  an  oil-tank." 

"Did  n't  you  save  any  lions  or  tigers?" 

He  shook  his  head.  "Was  n't  any  use  trying. 
They  'd  have  been  shot  by  policemen  as  fast  as  we  could 
get  'em  out.  Besides,  we  could  n't  get  'em  out.  We 


300  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

concentrated  on  elephants,  and  saved  all  the  herd  but 
five.  There  were  free  elephants  all  over  Bridgeport 
that  night,  and  a  queer  thing  was  we  had  to  look,  sharp 
that  some  of  the  elephants  we  'd  saved  did  n't  run  back 
into  the  fire.  You  know  how  horses  will  go  back  into 
a  burning  stable.  Well,  elephants  are  just  the  same. 
That  's  how  we  lost  the  white  elephant.  She  walked 
straight  into  the  blaze,  when  she  might  just  as  well 
have  walked  out  through  the  open  door." 

By  this  time  most  of  the  company  at  "Billy's"  had 
gathered  about  to  listen,  for  Nev;man  was  a  veteran 
among  veterans,  and  was  now  in  the  full  swing  of 
reminiscence.  He  went  back  to  his  earliest  days,  back 
to  Putnam  County,  New  York,  where  young  men 
might  well  be  drawn  to  the  circus  life,  so  many  famous 
showmen  has  this  region  produced — "Jim"  Kelly  and 
Seth  B.  Howes  and  Langway  and  the  Baileys. 

"I  started  with  Langway,  the  old  lion-tamer,"  said 
Newman,  "and  he  was  one  of  the  best.  I  '11  never  for- 
get what  he  told  me  once  when  he  was  breaking  in  a 
den  of  lions  and  tigers — there  were  three  lions  and 
two  tigers,  all  full  grown  and  fresh  from  the  jungle. 

"  'Bill/  said  he,  'I  'm  an  old  man,  and  this  here  is  my 
last  clen.  I  won't  break  in  no  more  big  cats,  but  I  11 
break  this  den  in  so  they  '11  never  work  for  another 
man  after  I  'm  gone.  It  '11  look  easy  what  I  do,  and 
folks  '11  want  you  to  tackle  'em,  Bill,  but  don't  you 
never  do  it,  for  if  you  do  these  cats  '11  chew  ye  up  sure.' 

"Well,  he  worked  that  den  in  great  shape  for  a  year 
or  so,  and  then  he  died,  and  I  minded  his  words.  I 
let  those  lions  and  tigers  alone.  They  hired  a  lion- 
tamer  named  Davis  to  work  'em,  and  sure  enough  he 
got  chewed  up  bad,  just  as  the  old  man  said  he  would, 
and  the  end  of  it  was  that  nobody  ever  did  work  that 
den  again;  it  could  n't  be  done,  although  they  'd  been 


302  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

like  kittens  with  Langway.  What  he  did  to  'em  's 
always  been  a  mystery." 

Newman  paused,  as  impressive  story-tellers  do,  and 
then,  drawing  once  more  upon  his  memories,  he  told 
how  a  terrible  death  came  to  poor  "Patsy"  Meagher  as 
he  was  drilling  a  herd  of  elephants  once  in  winter  quar- 
ters at  Columbus,  Ohio. 

"It  was  the  day  before  Thanksgiving,"  he  said. 
"I  '11  never  forget  it,  and  a  big  bull  elephant  named 
Syd  took  the  order  wrong,  \vent  'right  face'  instead  of 
'left  face,'  or  something,  and  'Patsy'  got  mad  and 
hooked  him  pretty  hard.  Some  think  it  was  'Patsy's' 
fault,  because  he  gave  the  wrong  order  by  mistake  and 
Syd  did  what  he  said,  while  the  other  elephants  did  the 
thing  he  meant  to  say.  Anyhow,  Syd  turned  on 
'Patsy'  and  let  him  have  both  tusks,  brass  balls  and  all, 
right  through  the  body.  Killed  him  in  half  a  minute. 
Why,  sir,  they  took  'Patsy's'  watch  out  through  his 
back.  That  's  the  sort  of  thing  you  're  liable  to  run 
up  against." 

"Did  they  kill  Syd?"  I  asked. 

"No;  they  gave  him  the  benefit  of  the  doubt.  You 
see,  it  ain't  square  to  blame  an  elephant  for  obeying 
orders." 

Then  came  the  story  of  how  they  killed  bad  old  Pilot 
at  the  Madison  Square  Garden  back  in  1883,  fought  his 
hard  spirit  all  night  long  with  clubs  and  pitchforks 
and  prods  and  hot  irons,  one  hundred  men  flaying  and 
jabbing  in  relays  against  a  poor,  bound  animal  that 
died  rather  than  yield — died  without  a  sound  as  day 
was  breaking.  "Yes,  sir,"  said  Newman;  "he  never 
squealed,  he  would  n't  squeal,  and  three  minutes  before 
he  died  he  nearly  killed  me  with  a  swing  of  his  trunk. 
Oh,  he  was  game  all  right,  Pilot  was." 

Newman   came  back  to  the  difficulty  of  working 


THE   WILD-BEAST   TAMER  303 

animals  broken  in  by  another  tamer,  but  he  declared 
that  the  thing  can  be  clone  in  some  cases  if  the  new 
tamer  has  in  him  that  unknown  something  to  which  all 
wild  beasts  submit.  His  own  wife,  for  example,  after 
a  dozen  years  of  peaceful  married  life,  determined  one 
day  that  she  would  make  a  herd  of  eight  big  Asiatic 
elephants  obey  her,  a  thing  no  woman  had  ever  at- 
tempted. And  within  three  weeks  she  did  it,  and 
drilled  the  herd  in  public  for  years  afterward — in  fact, 
became  a  greater  star  than  her  husband.  All  of  which 
wras  most  unusual,  and  due  entirely  to  her  exceptional 
nerve  and  physical  power.  "Why,  sir,"  said  Newman, 
proudly,  "she  was  six  feet  tall  and  built  like  an  athlete. 
She — she  only  died  a  few  years  ago,  and — and— 
That  gulp  and  the  catch  in  his  voice  told  the  whole 
story.  This  was  no  longer  a  dauntless  elephant-trainer, 
but  a  stricken,  heart-broken  man.  What  now  were 
glories  of  the  ring  to  him — his  wife  was  dead ! 


II 


METHODS    OF    LION-TAMERS    AND    THE    STORY    OF 
BRUTUS'S    ATTACK    ON    MR.    BOSTOCK 

THE  wild-beast  tamer  as  generally  pictured  is  a 
mysterious  person  who  stalks  about  sternly  in 
high  boots  and  possesses  a  remarkable  power  of  the  eye 
that  makes  lions  and  tigers  quail  at  his  look  and  shrink 
away.  He  rules  by  fear,  and  the  crack  of  his  whip  is 
supposed  to  bring  memories  of  torturing  points  and 
red-hot  irons. 

Such  is  the  story-book  lion-tamer,  and  I  may  as  well 
say  at  once  that  outside  of  story-books  he  has  small 
existence.  There  is  scarcely  any  truth  in  this  theory 
of  hate  for  hate  and  conquest  by  fear.  It  is  no  more 
fear  that  makes  a  lion  walk  on  a  ball  than  it  is  fear 
that  makes  a  horse  pull  a  wagon.  It  is  habit.  The 
lion  is  perfectly  willing  to  walk  on  the  ball,  and  he  has 
reached  that  mind,  not  by  cruel  treatment,  but  by  force 
of  his  trainer's  patience  and  kindness  and  superior 
intelligence. 

Of  course  a  wild-beast  tamer  should  have  a  quick 
eye  and  a  delicate  sense  of  hearing,  so  that  he  may  be 
warned  of  a  sudden  spring  at  him  or  a  rush  from  be- 
hind ;  and  it  is  important  that  he  be  a  sober  man,  for 
alcohol  breaks  the  nerve  or  gives  a  false  courage  worse 
than  folly :  but  the  quality  on  which  he  must  chiefly 
rely  and  which  alone  can  make  him  a  great  tamer — 
not  a  second-rate  bungler — is  a  genuine  fondness  for 

3°4 


3o6  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

his  animals.  This  does  not  mean  that  the  animals 
will  necessarily  be  fond  of  the  tamer ;  some  will  be  fond 
of  him,  some  will  be  indifferent  to  him,  some  will  fear 
and  hate  him.  Nor  will  the  tamer's  fondness  protect 
him  from  fang  and  claw.  We  shall  see  that  there  is 
danger  always,  accident  often,  but  without  the  fond- 
ness there  would  be  greater  danger  and  more  frequent 
accident.  A  fondness  for  lions  and  tigers  gives  sym- 
pathy for  them,  sympathy  gives  understanding  of  them, 
and  understanding  gives  mastery  of  them,  or  as  much 
mastery  as  is  possible.  What  but  this  fondness  would 
keep  a  tamer  constantly  with  his  animals,  not  only  in 
the  public  show  (the  easiest  part),  but  in  the  dens  and 
treacherous  runway,  in  the  strange  night  hours,  in 
the  early  morning  romp,  when  no  one  is  looking,  when 
there  is  no  reason  for  being  with  them  except  the 
tamer's  own  joy  in  it? 

I  do  not  purpose  now  to  present  in  detail  the  methods 
of  taming  wild  beasts ;  rather  what  happens  after  they 
are  tamed :  but  I  may  say  that  a  lion-tamer  always  be- 
gins by  spending  weeks  or  months  in  gaining  a  new 
animal's  confidence.  Day  after  day  he  will  stand  for  a 
long  time  outside  the  cage,  merely  looking  at  the  lion, 
talking  to  him,  impressing  upon  the  beast  a  general 
familiarity  with  his  voice  and  person.  And  each  time, 
as  he  goes  away,  he  is  careful  to  toss  in  a  piece  of  meat 
as  a  pleasant  memento  of  his  visit. 

Later  he  ventures  inside  the  bars,  carrying  some  sim- 
ple weapon — a  whip,  a  rod,  perhaps  a  broom,  which  is 
more  formidable  than  might  be  supposed,  through  the 
jab  of  its  sharp  bristles.  One  tamer  used  a  common 
chair  with  much  success  against  unbroken  lions.  If 
the  creature  came  at  him,  there  were  the  four  legs  in 
his  face;  and  soon  the  chair  came  to  represent  bound- 
less power  to  that  ignorant  lion.  He  feared  it  and 


308  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

hated  it,  as  was  seen  on  one  occasion  when  the  tamer 
left  it  in  the  cage  and  the  lion  promptly  tore  it  into 
splinters. 

Days  may  pass  before  the  lion  will  let  his  tamer  do 
more  than  merely  stay  inside  the  cage  at  a  distance. 


THE    LION    DESTROYS    THE    CHAIR. 


Very  well ;  the  tamer  stays  there.  He  waits  hour  after 
hour,  week  after  week,  until  a  time  comes  when  the 
lion  will  let  him  move  nearer,  will  permit  the  touch  of 
his  hand,  will  come  forward  for  a  piece  of  meat,  and 
at  last  treat  him  like  a  friend,  so  that  finally  he  may  sit 
there  quite  at  ease,  and  even  read  his  newspaper,  as 
one  man  did. 


THE   WILD-BEAST   TAMER  309 

Lastly  begins  the  practice  of  tricks :  the  lion  must 
spring  to  a  pedestal  and  be  fed ;  he  must  jump  from  one 
pedestal  to  another  and  be  fed,  must  keep  a  certain 
pose  and  be  fed.  A  bit  of  meat  is  always  the  final 
argument,  and  the  tamer  wins  (if  he  wins  at  all,  for 
sometimes  he  fails)  by  patience  and  kindness. 

"There  is  no  use  getting  angry  with  a  lion,"  said  a 
well-known  tamer  to  me,  "and  there  is  no  use  in  carry- 
ing a  revolver.  If  you  shoot  a  lion  or  injure  him  with 
any  weapon,  it  is  your  loss,  for  you  must  buy  another 
lion,  and  the  chances  are  that  he  will  kill  you,  anyway, 
if  he  starts  to  do  it.  The  thing  is  to  keep  him  from 
starting." 

I  once  had  a  talk  with  the  lion-tamer  Philadelphia 
on  the  subject  of  breaking  lions,  and  heard  from  him 
what  need  a  tamer  has  of  patience.  "I  have  sat  in  a 
lion's  cage,"  said  Philadelphia,  "two  or  three  hours 
every  day  for  weeks,  yes,  for  months,  waiting  for  him 
to  come  out  of  his  sulky  corner  and  take  a  piece  of 
meat  from  me.  And  that  was  only  a  start  toward  the 
mastery." 

"Would  n't  he  attack  you?" 

Philadelphia  smiled.  "He  did  at  first,  but  that  was 
soon  settled.  It  is  n't  hard  to  best  a  lion  if  you  go  at 
it  right.  I  usually  carry  a  pair  of  clubs.  Some  men 
prefer  a  broom,  because  the  bristles  do  great  work  in  a 
lion's  face,  without  injuring  him.  But  the  finest  weapon 
you  can  use  against  a  fighting  lion  is  a  hose  of  water. 
That  stops  his  fight,  only  you  must  n't  have  the  water 
too  cold,  or  he  may  get  pneumonia.  You  might  n't 
think  it,  but  lions  are  very  delicate.  In  using  the  clubs, 
you  must  be  careful  not  to  strike  'em  hard  across  the 
back.  You  'd  be  surprised  to  know  how  easy  it  is  to 
break  a  lion's  backbone,  especially  if  it 's  a  young  lion." 

In  support  of  this  statement  that  lions  are  delicate, 


THE   WILD-BEAST   TAMER  311 

I  remember  hearing  old  John  Smith,  director  of  the 
Central  Park  Menagerie,  set  forth  a  list  of  lions'  ail- 
ments, and  the  coddling  and  doctoring  they  require. 
Lion  medicine  is  usually  administered  in  the  food  or 
drink,  but  there  are  cases  requiring  more  heroic  mea- 
sures, and  then  the  animal  must  be  bound  down  before 
the  doctors  can  treat  him.  It  should  be  remembered 
that  lions  in  city  menageries  are  more  dangerous  than 
circus  lions,  since  they  are  either  wild  ones  brought 
straight  from  the  jungle  and  never  tamed  or  rebellious 
ones,  anarchist  lions  that  have  turned  against  their 
tamers,  perhaps  killed  them,  and  have  finally  been  sold 
to  any  zoological  garden  that  would  take  them. 

"When  we  have  to  rope  a  lion  down  to  doctor  him," 
said  Smith,  "we  drop  nooses  through  the  top  bars  and 
catch  his  four  legs,  and  let  down  one  around  his 
body.  Then  we  haul  these  fast,  and  there  you  are. 
You  can  feel  his  pulse  or  give  him  stuff  or  pull  out  one 
of  his  teeth  or  anything." 

"It  must  be  pretty  hard  to  pull  a  lion's  tooth,"  I 
remarked. 

"Not  very.  Here  's  the  forceps  I  use;  you  see  it 
is  n't  very  big.  This  is  for  the  upper  jaw,  and  that 
other  one  is  for  the  lower  jaw." 

I  made  some  remark,  meant  to  be  facetious,  about 
not  giving  lions  gas,  but  the  old  man  took  me  up 
sharply.  "Certainly  we  give  'em  gas.  How  else  in 
the  world  do  you  think  we  operate  on  'em?  They  get 
chloroform  same  as  a  person.  I  have  a  bag  for  it 
that  fits  over  a  lion's  head,  and  pulls  up  tight  with  a 
string.  In  the  bag  is  a  sponge  saturated  with  chloro- 
form, and  the  first  you  know  off  goes  Mr.  Lion  into 
quiet  sleep,  and  you  can  do  what  you  like  with  him. 
But  you  have  to  be  mighty  careful  not  to  give  him  too 
much,  and  look  sharp  at  his  heart  action,  or  you  '11 


312  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

have  a  dead  lion  on  your  hands.  Say,  I  've  found  out 
one  thing  chloroforming  lions  that  lots  of  doctors  don't 
know.  It 's  this,  that  if  a  lion  comes  back  hard  to  con- 
sciousness after  you  Ve  put  him  to  sleep,  you  can  help 
things  along  by  catching  hold  of  his  tail  and  heaving 
him  up  on  his  head.  That  sends  the  blood  down  to  his 
brain,  where  you  want  it,  and  pretty  soon  you  '11  see 
his  muscles  begin  to  twitch,  and  back  he  comes.  I  told 
a  doctor  about  this  once,  and  he  said  he  'd  done  the 
very  same  thing  with  patients." 

Coming  again  to  the  need  of  patience,  let  me  quote 
my  friend  "Bill"  Newman.  "Why,"  said  he,  "I  've 
spent  weeks  and  weeks  teaching  an  elephant  to  ring  a 
bell — just  that  one  thing.  You  have  to  sit  by  him 
hour  after  hour,  giving  him  the  bell  in  his  trunk  and 
giving  it  to  him  again  when  he  drops  it,  and  then 
again  and  again  for  a  whole  morning,  and  then  for 
many  mornings  until  he  gets  the  idea  and  rings  it  right. 
It  's  the  same  way  teaching  an  elephant  to  fan  himself 
or  teaching  tricks  to  a  clown  elephant ;  you  have  to  wait 
and  wait,  and  never  give  up.  Once  an  elephant  under- 
stands what  you  want  he  '11  do  it,  but  it  's  awful  hard 
sometimes  making  'em  understand." 

"How  do  you  teach  them  to  stand  on  their  heads 
and  on  their  hind  legs?"  I  asked. 

"With  the  same  kind  of  patience  and  with  tackle. 
Just  heave  'em  up  or  roll  'em  over  the  way  they  're 
supposed  to  go  and  then  keep  at  it.  Some  learn  quicker 
than  others.  Once  in  a  while  you  get  a  mean  one,  and 
then  look  out." 

An  instance  of  the  affection  felt  for  wild  beasts  by 
their  tamers  is  offered  in  the  case  of  Madame  Bianca, 
the  French  tamer,  who  in  the  winter  of  1900  was  with 
the  Bostock  Wild  Animal  Show  giving  daily  exhibi- 
tions in  Baltimore,  where  her  skill  and  daring  with 


THE   WILD-BEAST   TAMER  313 

lions  and  tigers  earned  wide  admiration.  It  will  be 
remembered  how  fire  descended  suddenly  on  this  mena- 
gerie one  night  and  destroyed  the  animals  amid  fear- 
ful scenes.  And  in  the  morning  Bianca  stood  in 
the  ruins  and  looked  upon  the  charred  bodies  of  her 
pets.  Had  she  lost  her  dearest  friends,  she  could 
scarcely  have  shown  deeper  grief.  She  was  in  despair, 
and  declared  that  she  would  never  tame  another  group ; 
she  would  leave  the  show  business.  And  when  the 
menagerie  was  stocked  afresh  with  lions  and  tigers 
Bianca  would  not  go  near  their  cages.  These  were 
lions  indeed,  but  not  her  lions,  and  she  shook  her  head 
and  mourned  for  "Bowzer,"  the  handsomest  lioness  in 
captivity,  and  "Spitfire,"  and  "Juliette,"  and  the  black- 
maned  "Brutus." 

This  recalls  a  story  that  Mr.  Bostock  told  me,  show- 
ing how  Bianca's  fondness  for  her  lions  persisted  even 
in  the  face  of  fierce  attack.  It  was  in  Kansas  City,  and 
for  some  days  Spitfire  had  been  working  badly,  so  that 
on  this  particular  afternoon  Bianca  had  spent  two  hours 
in  the  big  exhibition  cage  trying  to  get  the  lioness  into 
good  form.  But  Spitfire  remained  sullen  and  refused 
to  do  one  perfectly  easy  thing,  a  jump  over  a  pedestal. 

"Ask  Mr.  Bostock  to  please  come  here,"  called 
Bianca,  finally,  quite  at  her  wit's  end,  with  the  per- 
formance hour  approaching  and  hers  the  chief  act.  To 
go  on  with  Spitfire  in  rebellion  would  never  do,  for  the 
spirit  of  mischief  spreads  among  lions  and  tigers  ex- 
actly as  it  spreads  among  children.  Spitfire  must  jump 
over  that  pedestal. 

Mr.  Bostock  arrived  presently,  and  at  once  entered 
the  cage,  carrying  two  whips,  as  is  the  custom.  There 
is  something  in  this  man  that  impresses  animals  and 
tamers  alike.  It  is  not  only  that  he  is  big  and  strong, 
and  loves  his  animals,  and  does  not  fear  them;  that 


314  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

would  scarcely  account  for  his  extraordinary  prestige, 
which  is  his  rather  because  he  knows  lions  and  tigers 
as  only  a  man  can  who  has  literally  spent  his  life  with 
them.  From  father  and  grandfather  he  has  inherited 
precious  and  unusual  lore  of  the  cages.  He  was  born 
in  a  menagerie,  he  married  the  daughter  of  a  mena- 
gerie owner,  he  sleeps  always  within  a  few  feet  of 
the  dens,  he  eats  with  roars  of  lions  in  his  ears.  And 
his  principle  is,  and  always  has  been,  that  he  will  enter 
any  cage  at  any  time  if  a  real  need  calls  him — which 
has  led  to  many  a  situation  like  that  created  now  by 
Spitfire's  disobedience. 

There  were  many  groups  in  the  menagerie  at  this 
time,  each  with  its  regular  tamer;  and  while  Bostock, 
as  owner  and  director,  watched  over  all  of  them,  it 
often  happened  that  months  would  pass  without  his 
putting  foot  inside  this  or  that  particular  cage.  And 
in  the  present  case  he  was  practically  a  stranger  to  the 
four  lions  and  the  tiger  now  ranged  around  on  their 
pedestals  in  a  semi-circle  thirty  feet  in  diameter,  with 
big  Brutus  in  the  middle  and  snarling  Spitfire  at  one 
end. 

"Well,"  said  Mr.  Bostock,  explaining  what  hap- 
pened, "I  saw  that  Bianca  had  made  a  mistake  in  han- 
dling Spitfire  from  too  great  a  distance.  She  had 
stood  about  seven  feet  away,  so  I  stepped  three  feet 
closer  and  lifted  one  of  my  whips.  There  were  just 
two  things  Spitfire  could  do :  she  could  spring  at 
me  and  have  trouble,  or  she  could  jump  over  the 
pedestal  and  have  no  trouble.  She  growled  a  little, 
looked  at  me,  and  then  she  jumped  over  that  pedestal 
like  a  lady.  I  had  called  her  bluff. 

"The  rest  was  easy.  I  put  her  through  some  other 
tricks,  circled  her  around  the  cage  a  couple  of  times, 
and  brought  her  back  to  her  corner.  Then,  as  she 
crouched  there  and  snarled  at  me,  I  played  a  tattoo 


BIANCA  RESCUES   BOSTOCK  FROM    "BRUTUS." 


316  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

with  my  whip-handle  on  the  floor  just  in  front  of  her. 
It  was  just  a  sort  of  flourish  to  finish  off  with,  and  it 
was  one  thing  too  much;  for  in  doing  this  I  turned 
quite  away  from  the  rest  of  the  group  and  made  Brutus 
think  that  I  meant  to  hurt  the  lioness.  He  said  to  him- 
self:  'Hullo!  Here  's  a  stranger  in  our  cage  taking  a 
whip  to  Spitfire.  I  '11  just  settle  him.'  And  before  I 
could  move  he  sprang  twenty  feet  off  his  pedestal,  set 
his  fangs  in  my  thigh,  and  dragged  me  over  to  Bianca, 
as  if  to  prove  his  gallantry.  Then  the  Frenchwoman 
did  a  clever  thing :  she  clasped  her  arms  around  his 
big  neck,  drew  his  head  up,  and  fired  her  revolver  close 
to  his  ear.  Of  course  she  fired  only  a  blank  cartridge, 
but  it  brought  Brutus  to  obedience,  for  that  was  Bi- 
anca's  regular  signal  in  the  act  for  the  lions  to  take 
their  pedestals ;  and  the  habit  of  his  work  was  so  strong 
in  the  old  fellow  that  he  dropped  me  and  jumped  back 
to  his  place. 

"There  was  n't  any  more  to  it  except  that  I  lay  five 
weeks  in  bed  with  my  wounds.  But  this  will  show 
you  how  Bianca  loved  those  lions :  she  would  n't  let 
me  lift  a  hand  to  punish  Brutus.  Of  course  I  called 
for  irons  as  soon  as  I  got  up,  and,  wounded  or  not,  I 
would  have  taught  Mr.  Brutus  a  few  things  before  I 
left  that  cage  if  I  could  have  had  my  way.  But  Bianca 
pleaded  for  him  so  hard — why,  she  actually  cried— 
that  I  had  n't  the  heart  to  go  against  her.  She  said 
it  was  partly  my  own  fault  for  turning  my  back, — 
which  was  true, — and  that  Brutus  was  a  good  lion  and 
had  only  tried  to  defend  his  mate,  and  a  lot  more,  with 
tears  and  teasing,  until  I  let  him  off,  although  I  knew 
I  could  never  enter  Brutus's  cage  again  after  leaving 
it  without  showing  myself  master.  That  's  always 
the  way  with  lions:  if  you  once  lose  the  upper  hand 
you  can  never  get  it  back." 


Ill 


BONAVITA    DESCRIBES    HIS    FIGHT    WITH    SEVEN 

LIONS    AND    GEORGE    ARSTINGSTALL    TELLS 

HOW    HE    CONQUERED    A    MAD 

ELEPHANT 

IN  the  course  of  days  spent  with  Mr.  Bostock  and  his 
menagerie,  I  observed  many  little  instances  of  the 
tamer's  affection  for  his  animals.  I  could  see  it  in  the 
constant  fondling  of  the  big  cats  by  Bostock  himself, 
and  by  Bonavita,  his  chief  tamer,  and  even  by  the  cage 
grooms.  And  no  matter  how  great  the  crush  of  busi- 
ness, there  was  always  time  for  visiting  a  sick  lioness 
out  in  the  stable,  who  would  never  be  better,  poor 
thing,  but  should  have  all  possible  comforts  for  her 
last  days.  And  late  one  afternoon  I  stood  by  while 
Bonavita  led  a  powerful,  yellow-maneel  lion  into  the 
arena  cage  and  held  him,  as  a  mother  might  hold  a 
suffering  child,  while  the  doctor,  reaching  cautiously 
through  the  bars,  cut  away  a  growth  from  the  beast's 
left  eye.  It  is  true  they  used  a  local  anesthetic;  but 
even  so,  it  hurt  the  lion,  and  Bonavita's  position  as  he 
knelt  and  stroked  the  big  head  and  spoke  soothing 
words  seemed  to  me  as  far  as  possible  from  secure. 
Yet  it  was  plain  that  his  only  thought  was  to  ease  the 
lion's  pain. 

"I  could  n't  have  done  that  with  all  my  lions,"  Bona- 
vita said  to  me  after  the  operation;  "but  this  one  is 
specially  trained.  You  know  he  lets  me  put  my  head 
in  his  mouth." 

317 


318  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

Bonavita  is  a  handsome,  slender  man,  with  dark 
hair  and  eyes,  quite  the  type  of  a  Spanish  gentleman; 
and  I  liked  him  not  only  for  his  mastery  of  twenty-odd 
lions,  but  because  he  had  a  gentle  manner  and  was 
modest  about  his  work.  According  to  Mr.  Bostock, 
Bonavita  has  but  two  strong  affections :  one  for  his 
old  mother,  and  one  for  his  lions.  Occasionally  I 
could  get  him  aside  for  a  talk,  and  that  was  a  thing 
worth  doing. 

"People  ask  me  such  foolish  questions  about  wild 
beasts,"  he  said  one  clay.  "Fcr  instance,  they  want 
to  know  which  would  win  in  a  fight,  a  lion  or  a  tiger. 
I  tell  them  that  is  like  asking  which  would  win  in  a 
fight,  an  Irishman  or  a  Scotchman.  It  all  depends 
on  the  particular  tiger  you  have  and  the  particular  lion. 
Animals  are  just  as  different  as  men :  some  are  good, 
some  bad ;  some  you  can  trust  and  some  you  can't 
trust." 

"Which  is  the  most  dangerous  lion  you  have?"  I 
inquired. 

"Well,"  said  he,  "that  's  one  of  those  questions  I 
don't  know  how  to  answer.  If  you  ask  which  lion  has 
been  the  most  dangerous  so  far,  I  should  say  Denver, 
because  he  tore  my  right  arm  one  day  so  badly  that  they 
nearly  had  to  cut  it  off.  Still,  I  think  Ingomar  is  my 
most  dangerous  lion,  although  he  has  n't  got  his  teeth 
in  me  yet ;  he  \s  tried,  but  missed  me.  It  does  n't  mat- 
ter, though,  what  I  think,  for  it  may  be  one  of  these 
lazy,  innocent-looking  lions  that  will  really  kill  me. 
They  seem  tame  as  kittens,  but  you  can't  tell  what  's 
underneath.  Suppose  I  turn  my  back  and  one  of  them 
springs — why,  it  's  all  off." 

Another  day  he  said :  "A  man  gets  more  confidence 
every  time  he  faces  an  angry  lion  and  comes  out  all 
right.  Finally  he  gets  so  sure  of  his  power  that  he 


THE   WILD-BEAST   TAMER  319 

does  strange  things.  I  have  seen  a  lion  coming  at  me 
and  have  never  moved,  and  the  lion  has  stopped.  I 
have  had  a  lion  strike  at  me  and  the  blow  has  just 
grazed  my  head,  and  have  stood  still,  with  my  whip 
lifted,  and  the  lion  has  gone  off  afraid.  One  day  in 
the  ring  a  lion  caught  my  left  arm  in  his  teeth  as  I 
passed  between  two  pedestals.  I  did  n't  pull  away,  but 
stamped  my  foot  and  cried  out,  'Baltimore,  what  do 
you  mean?'  The  stamp  of  my  foot  was  the  lion's  cue 
to  get  off  the  pedestal,  and  Baltimore  loosed  his  jaws 
and  jumped  down.  His  habit  of  routine  was  stronger 
than  his  desire  to  bite  me." 

Again,  Bonavita  explained  that  there  is  some  strange 
virtue  in  carrying  in  the  left  hand  a  whip  which  is 
never  used.  The  tamer  strikes  with  his  right-hand 
whip  when  it  is  necessary,  but  only  lifts  his  left-hand 
whip  and  holds  it  as  a  menace  over  the  lion.  And  it 
is  likely,  Bonavita  thinks,  that  to  strike  with  that  re- 
serve whip  would  be  to  dispel  the  lion's  idea  that  it 
stands  for  some  mysterious  force  beyond  his  daring. 

"You  see,  lions  are  n't  very  intelligent,"  said  he; 
"they  don't  understand  what  men  are  or  what  they 
want.  That  is  our  hardest  work — to  make  a  lion  un- 
derstand what  we  want.  As  soon  as  he  knows  that  he 
is  expected  to  sit  on  a  pedestal  he  is  willing  enough  to 
do  it,  especially  if  he  gets  some  meat ;  but  it  often  takes 
weeks  before  he  finds  out  what  we  are  driving  at. 
You  can  see  what  slow  brains  lions  have,  or  tigers 
either,  by  watching  them  fight  for  a  stick  or  a  tin  cup. 
They  could  n't  get  more  excited  over  a  piece  of  meat. 
One  of  the  worst  wounds  I  ever  got  came  from  going 
into  a  lion's  den  after  an  overcoat  that  he  had  dragged 
away  from  a  foolish  spectator  who  was  poking  it  at 
him." 

I  finally  got  Bonavita  to  tell  me  about  the  time  when 


BONAVITA'S  FIGHT  WITH  SEVEN  LIONS  IN  THE  RUNWAY. 


THE   WILD-BEAST   TAMER  321 

the  lion  Denver  attacked  him.  It  was  during  a  per- 
formance at  Indianapolis,  in  the  fall  of  1900,  and 
the  trouble  came  at  the  runway  end  where  the  two 
circular  passages  from  the  •  cages  open  on  an  iron 
bridge  that  leads  to  the  show-ring.  Bonavita  had  just 
driven  seven  lions  into  this  narrow  space,  and  was 
waiting  for  the  attendants  to  open  the  iron-barred  door, 
when  Denver  sprang  at  him  and  set  his  teeth  in  his 
right  arm.  This  stirred  the  other  lions,  and  they  all 
turned  on  Bonavita;  but,  fortunately,  only  two  could 
reach  him  for  the  crush  of  bodies.  Here  was  a  tamer 
in  sorest  need,  for  the  weight  of  the  lions  kept  the  iron 
doors  from  opening  and  barred  out  the  rescuers.  In 
the  audience  was  wildest  panic,  and  the  building  re- 
sounded with  shouts  and  screams  and  the  roars  of 
angry  lions.  Women  fainted;  men  rushed  forward 
brandishing  revolvers,  but  dared  not  shoot;  and  for  a 
few  moments  it  seemed  as  if  the  tamer  was  doomed. 

But  Bonavita's  steady  nerve  saved  him.  As  Denver 
opened  his  jaws  to  seize  a  more  vital  spot,  the  tamer 
drove  his  whip-handle  far  down  into  his  red  throat, 
and  then,  with  a  cudgel  passed  in  to  him,  beat  the  brute 
back.  The  other  lions  followed,  and  this  freed  the 
iron  door,  which  the  grooms  straightway  opened,  and 
in  a  moment  the  seven  lions  were  leaping  toward  the 
ring  as  if  nothing  had  happened.  And  last  of  the 
seven  came  Denver,  driven  by  Bonavita,  white-faced 
and  suffering,  but  the  master  now,  and  greeted  with 
cheers  and  roars  of  applause.  No  one  realized  how 
badly  he  was  hurt,  for  his  face  gave  no  sign.  He 
bowed  to  the  audience,  cracked  his  whip,  and  began 
the  act  as  usual.  As  he  went  on  he  grew  weaker,  but 
stuck  to  it  until  he  had  put  the  lions  through  four  of 
their  tricks,  and  then  he  staggered  out  of  the  ring  into 
the  arms  of  the  doctors,  who  found  him  torn  with 


322  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

ugly  wounds  that  kept  him  for  weeks  in  the  hospital. 
That,  I  think,  is  an  instance  of  the  very  finest  lion- 
tamer  spirit. 

Among  various  meetings  with  tamers  of  animals,  I 
recall  with  particular  pleasure  one  afternoon  when  my 
friend  Newman  brought  to  see  me  a  tamer  famous  in 
his  day — George  Arstingstall.  I  knew  that  Arsting- 
stall  was  the  first  man  in  this  country  to  work  lions, 
tigers,  leopards,  elephants,  sheep,  monkeys,  and  various 
other  beasts  all  in  a  great  circular  cage.  Also  that  his 
fame  had  spread  across  Europe  and  his  daring  feats 
been  shown  from  London  to  Moscow;  but  I  did  not 
know  what  a  simple,  modest  man  he  was,  nor  realize 
until  then  the  charm  of  listening  to  a  couple  of  circus 
veterans,  comrades  for  years,  talking  of  the  old  stirring 
days.  Here  were  two  men  getting  on  to  sixty,  yet 
talking  with  the  eagerness  of  boys  about  their  exploits 
and  perils  under  fang  and  claw. 

It  was :  "Say,  Bill,  do  you  remember  when  that  bull 
pup  caught  Topsy  by  the  trunk  and  stampeded  the — 

"Stampeded  the  whole  business.  Do  I  remember, 
George?  Up  in  Boston.  Bing!  bang!  over  the  Com- 
mon, and  the  Old  Man  wild !  Well  I  guess.  But,  say, 
George,  that  was  n't  as  bad  as  the  stampede  in  Troy, 
when  those  four  elephants  cleaned  out  the  rolling-mill. 
Oh,  what  a  night!  Let  's  see.  There  was  Nan 
and—" 

"And  Tip." 

"Yes,  poor  old  Tip.  I  strangled  him  at  Bridgeport. 
You  remember,  George,  he  would  n't  take  the  poison. 
Oh,  he  was  no  fool,  Tip  was  n't,  and  I  told  the  Old 
Man  we  'd  have  to  put  nooses  on  him  and  cut  off  his 
wind." 

"I  know,  Bill,  the  Old  Man  said  it  was  n't  possible 
to  strangle  an  elephant — " 


THE   WILD-BEAST  TAMER  323 

''And  say,  George,  I  had  his  wind  shut  off  inside  of 
three  minutes  after  the  boys  began  to  haul.  Oh,  you 
can't  beat  three  sheave-blocks,  George,  for  finishing 
off  a  bad  tusker.  Well,  this  night  in  Troy  those 
four  elephants  went  sailing  through  this  rolling-mill, 
trumpeting  like  mad,  right  over  the  hot  iron,  scaring 
those  Irishmen  blue,  and  then  smashed  down  a  steep 
refuse  bank  into  the  mud.  Oh,  what  looking  ele- 
phants !  Nan  had  her  legs  all  burned,  and — " 

"I  know,  and  say,  Bill,  do  you  remember  where  I 
found  Tip?  Three  miles  out  of  Troy,  standing  up  in 
a  corn-field  sound  asleep,  and  two  little  boys  on  a  rail 
fence  looking  at  him.  He  'd  knocked  over  a  shanty 
and  smashed  open  a  barrel  of  whisky — a  whole  barrel, 
Bill — and  there  he  was  sound  asleep.  When  I  saw 
those  little  boys  I  made  up  my  mind  I  'd  found  Tip. 

"  'What  ye  lookin'  at,  little  boys?'  I  sung  out. 

"  'El'phunt,  mister/  says  one  of  the  boys,  sort  of 
careless  like,  just  as  if  it  was  a  common  thing  in  Troy 
for  elephants  to  be  asleep  in  corn-fields." 

"I  know,  that  's  the  way  little  boys  act,"  remarked 
Newman,  sagaciously.  "Say,  George,  tell  about  the 
time  you  took  that  car-load  of  animals  over  the  Alle- 
ghanies." 

After  some  preliminaries,  Mr.  Arstingstall  responded 
to  the  invitation,  and  I  heard  a  story  that  Victor  Hugo 
might  have  turned  into  a  masterpiece  of  description. 

It  was  back  in  the  winter  of  1874,  and  circus  trains 
were  not  fitted  up  as  completely  then  as  they  are  to-day. 
Arstingstall  was  in  charge  of  a  car  packed  with  a  med- 
ley of  animals — lions  and  tigers  in  cages,  some  camels, 
some  boxes  of  monkeys,  some  hyenas,  a  sacred  bull 
from  Tibet,  and  a  young  male  elephant  recently  brought 
from  Africa  and  as  yet  untrained.  All  these  were  on 
their  way  to  Wisconsin,  where  the  show  was  to  make 


324  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

its  spring  opening  in  a  couple  of  weeks,  during  which 
Arstingstall  was  expected  to  break  the  young  elephant 
for  driving  in  a  chariot  race. 

At  one  end  of  the  car  was  a  stove  against  the  bitter 
weather,  but  the  elephant  was  chained  at  the  other  end, 
and  as  they  came  into  the  mountain  region  Arstingstall 
noticed  that  the  elephant  was  suffering  from  cold,  and 
at  the  first  stop  sent  a  man  out  for  half  a  bucket  of 
whisky,  which  he  filled  up  with  water  and  gave  to  the 
shivering  animal.  There  is  no  use  giving  an  elephant 
whisky  unless  you  give  him  enough. 

Now  came  a  run  of  an  hour  and  a  half  without  stop, 
and  during  this  time  Arstingstall  was  alone  in  the  ani- 
mal-car, and  about  as  busy  as  he  ever  expects  to  be  on 
this  earth.  The  trouble  began  when  he  unloosed  the 
elephant's  chains  to  lead  him  nearer  the  stove,  for  it 
looked  as  if  his  ears  might  freeze,  as  happens.  Indeed, 
an  elephant's  ears  will  sometimes  freeze  so  hard  that 
big  pieces  drop  off,  while  a  frozen  tail  has  been  known 
to  drop  off  entirely. 

Against  such  chances  Arstingstall  wished  to  take 
precautions,  so  he  led  the  elephant  down  the  car, 
through  the  jumble  of  animals  and  cages,  all  the  less 
prepared  for  mischief  as  this  was  rather  a  smallish 
elephant,  not  over  six  feet  at  the  shoulder  and  show- 
ing only  half -grown  tusks.  But  they  were  sharp. 
Whether  it  was  the  whisky  taking  violent  effect  or 
some  sudden  hatred  for  his  keeper — at  any  rate,  that 
elephant,  long  before  he  reached  the  stove,  set  forth 
upon  a  murderous  campaign  the  like  of  which  Arsting- 
stall had  never  known.  Before  he  realized  the  danger, 
he  felt  the  creature's  trunk  twisting  around  his  neck, 
and  he  was  hurled  violently  to  the  floor.  There  he  lay 
helpless,  while  the  elephant  hesitated,  one  might  fancy, 


THE   WILD-BEAST   TAMER  325 

whether  to  kneel  on  him  and  crush  the  life  out  or  run 
him  through  with  his  tusks. 

In  that  moment's  pause  Arstingstall  made  a  last  de- 
spairing effort,  did  the  only  thing  he  could  do,  sunk 
his  teeth  into  the  fleshy  finger  that  curls  around  the  end 
of  an  elephant's  trunk  and  covers  the  opening  so  that 
no  invading  mouse  may  enter  and  work  destruction. 
In  all  an  elephant's  great  body,  there  is  no  spot  so  sen- 
sitive as  this  finger,  and,  with  a  scream  of  pain,  the 
animal  loosed  his  hold,  whereupon  Arstingstall  sprang 
behind  one  of  the  cages.  But  the  elephant  was  after 
him  in  a  moment,  swinging  his  trunk  and  trumpeting 
black  murder.  Arstingstall  dodged  behind  the  camels, 
behind  the  sacred  bull,  behind  the  stove.  The  ele- 
phant followed  him  everywhere,  profiting  by  his  small- 
ness,  and  where  he  could  not  go  himself  he  sent  his 
curling  trunk.  Arstingstall,  out  of  breath,  climbed  on 
top  of  the  lion's  cage,  thinking  to  find  some  respite,  but 
the  red-ended  trunk  pursued  him.  Once  more  he  tried 
biting  tactics,  and  as  the  reaching  finger  swept  along 
the  cage  top  he  seized  it  again  in  his  teeth,  and  this 
time  took  a  piece  clean  out  of  it,  which  was  not  pleas- 
ant for  him,  and  less  so  for  the  elephant. 

Now  came  a  truce  of  some  minutes,  during  which 
the  elephant  put  forth  screaming  challenges,  but  kept 
at  a  distance,  and  allowed  Arstingstall  to  reach  the 
bunks  beside  the  monkeys'  cages.  From  the  topmost 
bunk  opened  a  trap-door  in  the  car  roof,  the  only  exit, 
as  the  sliding  side-doors  were  bolted.  He  might  es- 
cape here  to  the  back  of  the  train,  but  that  would  leave 
a  mad  elephant  in  possession  of  the  car,  a  thing  not  to 
be  thought  of.  Thus  far  the  elephant's  rage  had  been 
directed  solely  against  his  keeper,  but,  the  keeper  gone, 
he  might  turn  to  destroying  the  other  animals,  might 


326  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

kill  the  sacred  bull,  or  smash  open  the  lions'  cages — 
there  was  no  telling  what  he  might  do.  Arstingstall 
saw  that  his  duty  lay  in  that  car.  Whatever  came, 
he  must — 

Crash !  came  the  elephant  again,  and  the  lower  berth 
was  a  wreck.  And  now  the  din  became  infernal  with 
the  roaring  and  bellowing  and  chattering  of  the  other 
animals.  Arstingstall  did  some  quick  thinking.  There 
was  sure  death  before  him,  unless  he  could  somehow 
conquer  this  frenzied  creature,  whose  rushes,  coming 
harder  and  harder,  must  soon  batter  down  the  car,  for 
all  its  stout  oak  timbers.  Oh,  for  a  weapon,  a  prod 
of  some  sort,  a — like  a  flash  the  thought  came;  down 
at  the  other  end  was  the  pitchfork  used  for  throwing 
fodder.  There  was  his  chance ;  he  must  get  that  pitch- 
fork. 

For  the  next  hour  it  was  a  fight,  man  against  ele- 
phant, for  the  winning  and  holding  of  that  pitchfork. 
There  was  the  whole  story,  and  some  day  I  hope  to  give 
its  details,  the  moves  and  counter-moves,  the  strategy  of 
brute  against  human,  the  conflict  of  brain  against  crude 
force.  Arstingstall  won,  but  by  what  patience  and  quiet 
nerve  he  alone  knows.  Foot  by  foot,  cage  by  cage,  he 
worked  his  way  down  the  length  of  that  car,  the  ele- 
phant now  on  the  defensive,  one  would  say,  as  if  he 
realized  what  was  planning,  the  man  watching,  reso- 
lute, biding  his  time,  ready  for  a  sudden  rush,  forced 
now  and  again  to  use  his  teeth  upon  that  murderous 
trunk. 

Finally,  he  got  the  pitchfork,  and  for  a  moment — 
what  a  moment  that  was ! — held  four  prongs  of  flash- 
ing steel  before  the  elephant's  eyes,  red-burning,  unsub- 
missive. It  was  all  over  now,  the  battle  was  won,  the 
animal  knew,  and  stood  still  awaiting  the  blow.  Down 
came  the  weapon,  and  right  through  the  trunk  went 


THE   WILD-BEAST   TAMER  327 

those  four  sharp  points,  down  into  the  timbers  under 
foot.  Then  Arstingstall  braced  the  handle  under  a 
wall-beam,  so  that  the  elephant  was  nailed  fast  to  the 
floor,  nose  down.  And  then  the  brute  squealed  his 
submission. 

Three  weeks  later  Arstingstall  drove  that  elephant, 
perfectly  broken,  in  a  chariot  race,  and  for  years  after 
there  was  not  a  better  little  bull  in  the  herd  than  he. 


IV 


WE   SEE    MR.    BOSTOCK    MATCHED    AGAINST    A 

WILD    LION    AND    HEAR    ABOUT    THE 

TIGER    RAJAH 

Tl  WHENEVER  I  made  the  round  of  cages  with  Mr. 
VV  Bostock  I  was  struck  by  the  fierce  behavior  of  a 
certain  male  lion  with  brown-and-yellow  mane, — 
"Young  Wallace,"  they  called  him, — who  would  set  up 
a  horrible  snarling  as  soon  as  we  came  near,  and  rush 
at  the  bars  as  if  to  tear  them  down.  And  no  matter 
how  great  the  crowd,  his  wicked  yellow  eyes  would 
always  follow  Bostock,  and  his  deep,  purring  roar 
would  continue  and  break  into  furious  barks  if  the 
tamer  approached  the  bars.  Then  his  jaws  would 
open  and  the  red  muzzle  curl  back  from  his  tusks,  and 
again  and  again  he  would  strike  the  floor  with  blows 
that  would  crush  a  horse. 

"Does  n't  love  me,  does  he?"  said  Bostock,  one  day. 

"What  's  the  matter  with  him?"  I  asked. 

"Why,  nothing;  only  he  's  a  wild  lion — never  been 
tamed,  you  know ;  and  I  took  him  in  the  ring  one  day. 
He  has  n't  forgotten  it — have  you  old  boy?  Hah!" 
Bostock  stamped  his  foot  suddenly,  and  Young  Wal- 
lace crouched  back,  snarling  still,  a  picture  of  hatred 
and  fear. 

"Yes,"  went  on  Bostock,  "he  's  wild  enough.  You 
see,  after  the  fire,  I  had  to  get  animals  from  pretty 
much  everywhere,  and  get  'em  quick.  Did  some  lively 
cabling,  I  can  tell  you ;  and  pretty  soon  there  were 

323 


THE   WILD-BEAST   TAMER  329 

lions  and  tigers  and  leopards  and — oh,  everything  from 
sacred  bulls  down  to  snakes,  chasing  across  the  ocean, 
and  more  than  half  of  them  had  been  loose  in  the  jungle 
six  months  ago.  It  was  a  case  of  hustle,  and  we  took 
what  they  sent  us.  Then  we  had  fun  breaking  'em  in. 
Ask  Madame  Morelli  if  we  did  n't.  She  's  in  the  hos- 
pital now  from  the  claws  of  that  fellow."  He  pointed 
to  a  sleepy-looking  jaguar. 

"Tell  you  how  I  came  to  take  this  wild  lion  into  the 
ring.  I  had  a  press-agent  who  had  been  announcing 
out  West  what  a  wonder  I  was  with  wild  beasts,  and 
how  I  was  n't  afraid  of  anything  on  legs,  and  so  on. 
That  was  all  very  well  while  I  was  in  Baltimore;  but 
when  I  joined  my  other  show  after  the  fire,  of  course 
I  had  to  live  up  to  my  reputation.  And  when  they  got 
up  a  traveling  men's  benefit  out  in  Indianapolis  and 
asked  me  to  go  into  the  ring  with  Young  Wallace, 
why,  there  was  n't  anything  to  do  but  go  in.  It 
was  n't  quite  so  funny,  though,  as  it  seemed,  for  I 
might  as  well  have  taken  a  lion  fresh  from  the  wilds 
of  Africa."  Mr.  Bostock  smiled  at  the  memory. 

"Well,  I  did  the  thing,  and  got  through  all  right. 
Young  Wallace  has  n't  forgotten  what  happened  to 
him.  I  got  the  best  of  him  by  a  trick :  had  a  little 
shelter  cage  placed  inside  the  big  arena  cage,  and  at 
first  I  stood  in  the  small  one,  and  let  the  lion  come  at 
me.  Oh,  you  'd  better  believe  he  came!  I  thought 
sure  he  'd  jump  clean  over  the  thing  and  land  on  me; 
for  there  was  no  roof  to  my  cage — only  sides  of  wire 
netting.  He  did  n't  quite  do  it,  though;  and  as  soon 
as  I  saw  he  was  getting  rattled  I  stepped  out  quick  and 
went  at  him  hard  with  whip  and  club.  And  I  drove 
him  all  over  the  ring,  and  the  people  went  crazy,  for 
he  was  the  maddest  lion  you  ever  saw. 

"That  was  all  right  as  far  as  it  went,  but  the  people 


330  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

wanted  more.  They  got  to  be  out-and-out  bloodthirsty 
there  in  Indianapolis.  Wanted  me  to  go  in  the  ring 
with  Rajah,  that  big  tiger.  See,  over  there!  Come 
up,  Rajah.  Beauty,  is  n't  he?  Does  n't  pay  any  special 
attention  to  me,  does  he?  Nearly  killed  me,  just  the 
same.  Look!"  He  lifted  his  cap  and  showed  wide 
strips  of  plaster  on  his  head. 

"Point  about  Rajah  was  that  he  'd  killed  one  of  my 
keepers  a  couple  of  weeks  before.  Poor  fellow  got  in 
his  cage  by  mistake.  And  now  these  Indianapolis 
folks  wanted  to  see  me  handle  him.  Between  you  and 
me,  this  keeper  was  n't  the  first  man  Rajah  had  killed, 
and  I  did  n't  care  much  for  the  job.  As  for  my  wife — 
well,  you  can  imagine  how  she  felt  when  she  heard  I 
was  going  in  with  Rajah. 

"On  the  morning  of  the  performance  I  decided  to 
have  a  rehearsal,  and  called  on  a  few  picked  men  to 
help  me.  I  knew  by  the  way  he  had  killed  his  keeper 
that  Rajah  would  go  at  my  head  if  he  attacked  me 
at  all,  so  I  rigged  up  a  mask  of  iron  wire,  and  wore  this 
strapped  over  my  head  like  a  little  barrel.  Then  I 
drove  him  into  the  arena  and  began,  while  the  others 
looked  on  anxiously.  It  's  queer,  sir,  but  that  tiger 
went  through  his  tricks  as  nice  as  you  please,  back 
and  forth,  up  on  his  pedestal  and  down  again,  every- 
thing just  as  he  used  to  do  in  the  old  days  before  he 
went  bad.  Never  balked,  never  turned  on  me ;  just  as 
good  as  gold. 

"Soon  as  I  was  satisfied  I  drove  him  across  the  bridge 
and  down  the  runway  toward  his  den.  I  came  about  a 
dozen  feet  behind  him,  carrying  a  long  wooden  shield, 
as  we  generally  do  in  a  narrow  space.  Rajah  reached 
his  cage  all  right,  and  went  in.  You  see,  he  could  n't 
go  down  the  runway  any  farther,  for  the  door  opening 
outward  barred  the  passage.  Behind  that  door  I  had 


332  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

stationed  a  keeper,  with  orders  to  close  it  as  soon  as 
Rajah  was  inside;  but  Rajah  went  in  so  silently  that 
the  keeper  did  n't  know  it,  the  peep-holes  in  the  door 
being  too  high  for  him  to  see  very  well.  The  result 
was  that  the  cage  door  stood  open  for  a  few  seconds 
after  the  tiger  had  gone  in.  It  seems  a  little  thing, 
but  it  nearly  cost  me  my  life;  for  when  I  came  up 
Rajah's  head  was  right  back  of  the  open  door,  and 
when  I  reached  out  my  hand  to  close  the  door  he  sprang 
at  me,  and  in  a  second  had  me  down,  with  his  teeth 
in  my  arm  and  his  claws  digging  into  my  head  through 
openings  in  the  mask. 

"Then  you  'd  better  believe  there  was  a  fight  in  that 
.runway!  The  keepers  rushed  in;  Bonavita  rushed  in. 
They  shot  at  him  with  revolvers,  they  jabbed  him  with 
irons,  they  pounded  at  him  with  clubs ;  and  one  of  the 
blows  that  Rajah  dodged  knocked  me  senseless.  Well, 
they  got  me  out  finally.  I  guess  the  mask  saved  my 
life.  But  I  did  n't  take  Rajah  into  the  ring  that  even- 
ing, and  Rajah  won't  be  seen  in  the  ring  any  more. 
He  's  made  trouble  enough.  Why,  the  things  I  could 
tell  you  about  that  tiger  would  fill  a  book." 

Some  of  these  things  he  did  tell  me,  for  I  brought 
the  talk  back  to  Rajah  whenever  the  chance  offered. 
I  well  remember,  for  instance,  the  occasion  when  I 
heard  how  Rajah  once  got  out  of  his  cage  and  chased 
a  quagga — one  of  those  queer  little  animals  that  are 
half  zebra  and  half  mule.  It  was  late  at  night,  and 
we  had  entered  the  runway,  Mr.  Bostock  and  I,  after 
the  performance,  for  he  wanted  me  to  realize  the  perils 
of  this  narrow  boarded  lane  that  circles  all  the  dens 
and  leads  the  lions  to  the  ring.  It  is  indeed  a  terrify- 
ing place — a  low,  dimly  lighted  passage,  curving  con- 
stantly, so  that  you  see  ahead  scarcely  twenty  feet,  and 
are  always  turning  a  slow  corner,  always  peering  ahead 


THE   WILD-BEAST   TAMER  333 

uneasily  and  listening !  What  is  that  ?  A  soft  tread  ? 
The  glow  of  greenish  eyeballs?  Who  can  tell  when  a 
bolt  may  slip  or  a  board  give  way?  So  many  things 
have  happened  in  these  runways !  Of  course  a  lion  has 
no  business  to  be  out  of  his  den,  but — but  suppose  he 
is?  Suppose  you  meet  him — now — there! 

Well,  it  was  here  that  I  heard  the  story.  Bonavita, 
it  appears,  was  standing  on  the  bridge  one  morning 
when  there  arose  a  fearful  racket  in  the  runway,  and, 
looking  in,  he  saw  the  quagga  tearing  along  toward 
him.  He  concluded  that  some  one  had  unfastened  the 
door,  and  was  just  preparing  to  check  the  animal,  when 
around  the  curve  came  Rajah  in  full  pursuit.  Bona- 
vita stepped  back,  drew  his  revolver,  and,  as  the  tiger 
rushed  past,  fired  a  blank  cartridge,  thinking  thus  to 
divert  him  from  the  quagga.  But  Rajah  paid  not  the 
slightest  heed,  and  in  long  bounds  came  out  into  the 
arena  hard  after  the  terrified  quadruped,  which  was 
galloping  now  with  the  speed  of  despair.  A  keeper 
who  was  sweeping  clambered  up  the  iron  sides  and 
anxiously  watched  the  race  from  the  top.  Bonavita, 
powerless  to  interfere,  watched  from  the  bridge. 

Of  all  races  ever  run  in  a  circus  this  was  the  most 
remarkable.  It  was  a  race  for  life,  as  the  quagga  knew 
and  the  tiger  intended.  Five  times  they  circled  the 
arena,  Rajah  gaining  always,  but  never  enough  for  a 
spring.  In  the  sixth  turn,  however,  he  judged  the  dis- 
tance right,  and  straightway  a  black-and-yellow  body 
shot  through  the  air  in  true  aim  at  the  prey.  Where- 
upon the  quagga  did  the  only  thing  a  quagga  could  do 
—let  out  both  hind  legs  in  one  straight,  tremendous 
kick;  and  they  do  say  that  a  quagga  can  kick  the  eyes 
out  of  a  fly.  At  any  rate,  in  this  case  a  pair  of  nervous 
little  heels  caught  the  descending  tiger  squarely  under 
the  lower  jaw,  and  put  him  to  sleep  like  a  nice  little 


THE   TIGER    "RAJAH"    KICKED   BY   THE  QUAGGA. 


THE   WILD-BEAST  TAMER  335 

lullaby.  And  that  was  the  end  of  it.  The  quagga 
trotted  back  to  its  cage,  Bonavita  put  up  his  revolver, 
the  frightened  sweeper  climbed  down  from  the  bars, 
and  Rajah  was  hauled  back  ignominiously  to  his  den. 

Here  we  have  three  instances  showing  the  extreme 
importance  of  little  things  in  a  menagerie.  A  keeper 
opens  door  No.  13  instead  of  door  No.  14,  and  is 
straightway  killed.  A  screw  is  loose  in  a  bolt  fasten- 
ing, and,  presto!  a  tiger  is  at  large.  A  watcher  at  a 
peep-hole  looks  away  for  a  moment,  and  a  life  goes  into 
jeopardy.  It  is  always  so;  and  I  will  let  Mr.  Bostock 
tell  how  a  little  thing  gave  Rajah  his  first  longing  to 
kill. 

"It  was  several  years  ago,"  said  he,  "when  I  was 
running  a  wagon  show  in  England.  I  remember  we 
were  about  a  mile  and  a  half  out  of  a  certain  town  when 
this  thing  happened.  For  some  reason  Rajah  had  been 
transferred  to  a  bear-wagon,  and  we  ought  to  have  ex- 
amined it  more  carefully,  for  bears  are  the  worst  fel- 
lows in  the  world  to  damage  a  cage  by  ripping  up  the 
timbers;  it  seems  as  if  nothing  can  resist  their  claws 
and  teeth.  And  this  particular  cage  was  in  such  bad 
shape  that  Rajah  managed  to  get  out  of  it.  I  knew 
something  must  be  wrong  when  I  saw  the  big  elephant- 
wagon  that  headed  the  procession  go  tearing  away  with 
its  six  horses  on  a  dead  run  under  the  driver's  lash. 
No  wonder  the  driver  was  scared,  for  he  had  turned 
his  head  and  seen  the  two  draft-horses  that  followed 
him  down  on  the  ground,  with  Rajah  tearing  at  one 
of  them,  and  the  other  one  dead. 

"It  was  n't  a  pretty  sight  when  we  got  there,  and  it 
was  n't  an  easy  job,  either,  capturing  Rajah.  I  don't 
know  what  we  should  have  done  if  it  had  n't  been  for 
a  long-haired  fellow  in  the  show  called  'Mustang  Ned,' 
who  came  up  with  a  coil  of  rope  and  lassoed  the  tiger. 


336  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

Then  we  tangled  him  up  in  netting,  and  finally  got  him 
into  one  of  the  ^shifting-cages.  But  after  that  he  was 
never  the  same  tiger.  You  would  n't  think  there  was 
a  time  when  Rajah  used  to  ride  around  the  tent  on  an 
elephant's  back,  with  only  a  little  black  ~boy  to  guard 
him!" 

"What,  outside  the  iron  ring?" 

"Yes,  sir,  right  among  the  women  and  children. 
He  did  that  twice  a  day  for  over  a  year.  Might  be 
doing  it  yet  if  the  black  boy  had  n't  been  so  careful  of 
his  white  trousers." 

"His  white  trousers?" 

"That  's  right.  You  see,  this  boy  rode  on  the  ele- 
phant, behind  Rajah,  and  he  wore  long  black  boots 
and  a  fine  white  suit.  Made  quite  a  picture.  Only  he 
did  n't  like  to  rub  his  trousers  against  the  tiger,  for  an 
animal's  back  is  naturally  oily;  so  he  used  to  tuck  his 
legs  under  a  lion's  skin  that  Rajah  rode  on,  and  wrap 
it  around  him  like  a  carriage-robe. 

"Well,  one  day  as  they  were  going  around  the  nig- 
ger lost  his  balance  and  tumbled  off  the  elephant,  pull- 
ing the  lion's  skin  with  him,  and  of  course  that  dragged 
Rajah  along,  too.  The  first  thing  we  knew,  there  was 
a  big  tiger  on  the  ground,  and  people  running  about 
and  screaming.  Pleasant,  was  n't  it  ? 

"In  another  minute  we  'd  have  had  a  panic ;  but  by 
good  luck  I  was  there,  and  caught  Raj  ah  quickly  around 
the  neck  and  held  him  until  the  others  got  a  rope  on  him. 
Then  we  had  a  time  getting  him  back  on  the  elephant. 
Eirst  I  tried  to  make  him  spring  up  from  a  high  pedes- 
tal, but  he  would  n't  spring.  Next  I  had  them  work 
a  ladder  under  Rajah,  so  that  he  sat  on  it;  and  then, 
with  two  men  at  one  end  and  me  at  the  other,  we 
lifted  him  slowly  level  with  our  shoulders,  level  with 
our  heads,  and  just  there  the  tiger  gave  a  vicious  growl, 


338  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

and  the  two  men  lowered  their  end.  That  made  him 
work  up  toward  my  end,  and  in  a  second  I  had  Rajah's 
face  close  to  my  face,  and  both  my  hands  occupied  with 
the  ladder.  I  could  n't  do  a  thing,  and  the  only  ques- 
tion was  what  he  would  do.  He  looked  at  me,  looked 
at  the  elephant,  and  then  struck  out  hard  and  quick, 
missing  me  only  by  a  hair;  in  fact,  he  did  n't  miss  me 
entirely,  for  one  of  his  claws  just  reached  the  corner 
of  my  eye — see,  I  have  the  scar  still.  But  he  jumped 
on  the  elephant,  and  we  kept  the  mastery  that  day. 
Still,  it  was  bad  business,  and  I  saw  we  could  n't 
take  such  chances  again.  That  was  Rajah's  last  ride." 


WE    SPEND    A    NIGHT    AMONG    WILD    BEASTS 

AND    SEE    THE    DANGEROUS    LION 

BLACK    PRINCE 

THE  general  opinion  among  wild-beast  tamers  is 
that  the  tiger  is  more  to  be  feared  than  the  lion. 
The  one  will  kill  a  man  as  easily  as  the  other,  but  the 
lion  gives  fair  warning  of  his  murderous  intention  by 
rushing  at  his  victim  with  a  roar,  whereas  the  tiger, 
true  representative  of  the  cat  tribe,  sneaks  up  with  sem- 
blance of  affectionate  purr,  only  to  set  his  fangs  sud- 
denly into  the  very  life  of  his  victim.  The  lion  has 
somewhat  greater  muscular  power  than  the  tiger,  but 
the  latter  has  greater  quickness. 

The  tamer  Philadelphia  told  me  once  that  he  had 
seen  a  lion  fasten  his  fangs  in  the  shoulder  of  a  dead 
horse  and  drag  the  carcass,  weighing  perhaps  a  thou- 
sand pounds,  a  distance  of  twenty  feet.  If  a  lion  and  a 
strong  horse  were  to  pull  in  opposite  directions,  the 
horse  would  drag  the  lion  backward  with  comparative 
ease;  but  if  the  lion  were  hitched  behind  the  horse,  fac- 
ing in  the  same  direction,  and  were  allowed  to  exert 
his  strength  in  backing,  he  could  easily  pull  the  horse 
down  upon  his  haunches,  so  much  greater  is  his 
strength  when  exerted  backward  from  the  hind  legs 
than  in  forward  pulling. 

A  lion  springing  through  the  air  from  a  distance  of 
six  feet  would  knock  down  a  horse  or  bullock  with  a 
single  blow  of  his  forearm,  backed  by  the  momentum 

339 


340  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

of  his  three  hundred  pounds'  weight,  and  a  full-grown 
lion  in  the  jungles  will  jump  twenty-five  or  thirty  feet 
on  the  level  from  a  running  start.  In  captivity  the 
same  lion  would  clear  a  distance  about  half  as  great. 
A  lion  can  jump  over  a  fence  eight  or  ten  feet  high, 
but  not  at  a  bound.  He  catches  first  with  his  fore- 
legs, and  drags  his  body  after  him.  Tigers  will  jump 
a  trifle  higher  than  lions.  But  of  all  wild  animals,  the 
leopards  are  the  greatest  jumpers,  being  able  to  hurl 
their  lithe  and  beautiful  bodies,  curled  up  almost  into  a 
ball,  to  extraordinary  heights.  They  bound  with  ease, 
for  instance,  from  the  floor  of  the  cage  so  as  to  touch 
a  ceiling  twelve  feet  high. 

For  a  short  distance  a  lion  or  a  tiger  will  outrun  a 
man,  and  can  equal  the  speed  of  a  fast  horse,  but  they 
lose  their  wind  at  the  end  of  half  a  mile  at  the  most. 
They  have  little  endurance,  and  are  remarkably  weak 
in  lung  power.  Their  strength  is  the  kind  which  is 
capable  of  a  terrific  effort  for  a  short  time.  It  would 
take  six  men,  for  instance,  to  hold. a  lion  down  in  his 
first  struggles,  even  after  his  legs  were  tied. 

One  day  Philadelphia,  wishing  to  test  the  affection 
popularly  supposed  to  exist  between  a  lion  and  a  mouse, 
put  a  mouse  in  the  cage  of  a  full-grown  Nubian  lion. 
The  lion  saw  the  mouse  before  it  was  fairly  through 
the  bars,  and  was  after  him  instantly.  Away  went  the 
little  fellow,  scurrying  across  the  floor  and  squealing 
in  fright.  When  he  had  gone  about  ten  feet,  the  lion 
sprang,  lighting  a  little  in  front  of  him.  The  mouse 
turned,  and  the  lion  sprang  again.  This  was  repeated 
several  times,  the  mouse  traversing  a  shorter  distance 
after  each  spring  of  the  lion.  It  was  demonstrated 
that  a  lion  is  too  quick  for  a  mouse,  at  least  in  a  large 
cage. 

Finally  the  mouse  stood  still,  trembling,  while  the 


THE   WILD-BEAST   TAMER  341 

lion  studied  it  with  interest.  Presently  he  shot  out 
his  big  paw,  and  brought  it  down  directly  on  the 
mouse,  but  so  gently  that  the  little  fellow  was  not 
injured  in  the  least,  though  held  fast  between  the 
claws.  Then  the  lion  played  with  him  in  the  most  ex- 
traordinary way,  now  lifting  his  paw  and  letting  the 
mouse  run  a  few  inches,  now  stopping  him  as  before. 
Suddenly  the  mouse  changed  his  tactics,  and,  instead 
of  running  when  the  lion  lifted  his  paw,  sprang  into 
the  air  straight  at  the  lion's  head.  The  lion,  terrified, 
gave  a  great  leap  back,  striking  the  bars  with  all  his 
weight,  and  shaking  the  whole  floor.  Then  he  opened 
his  great  jaws  and  roared  and  roared  again,  while  the 
little  mouse,  still  squealing,  made  his  escape.  Of  the 
two,  the  lion  was  the  more  frightened. 

Speaking  of  Philadelphia,  I  used  to  wonder,  as  I 
watched  him  manage  Black  Prince  on  horseback, 
whether  the  lion  was  really  in  earnest  as  he  struck 
and  roared  with  such  apparent  viciousness,  or  whether 
he  had  simply  been  trained  to  play  a  part.  Certainly 
the  lion  looked  as  if  his  one  desire  was  to  kill  the  little 
man  who  teased  him  so  with  rod  and  whip,  smiling  all 
the  time  under  his  yellow  mustache. 

One  night  Black  Prince  sprang  ten  feet  through  the 
air  straight  at  Philadelphia,  who  saved  his  life  by 
dodging,  but  did  not  escape  the  sweep  of  the  lion's 
forearm.  No  one  knew  that,  however,  for  the  tamer 
showed  no  sign  of  injury,  but  brought  his  heavy  whip 
down  with  a  stinging  cut  over  the  lion's  head,  and  went 
through  the  "act,"  holding  a  handkerchief  to  his  face 
now  and  then,  but  smiling  as  before.  When  he  left 
the  ring,  it  was  found  that  one  of  the  lion's  claws  had 
laid  his  cheek  open  almost  from  eye  to  lip. 

"He  meant  to  kill  me  that  trip,"  said  Philadelphia, 
as  they  bound  up  his  face. 


342  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

"We  will  never  show  that  lion  again,"  declared  the 
manager,  much  excited. 

"Oh,  yes,  we  will!"  answered  the  wounded  tamer. 
"I  will  make  him  work  to-morrow  as  usual."  And 
he  did,  teasing  and  prodding  him  that  day  as  never 
before,  as  if  daring  him  to  do  his  worst. 

The  climax  was  reached  one  night  in  January,  when 
Black  Prince  came  within  an  ace  of  killing  this  daring 
tamer,  and  certainly  would  have  done  so  had  not  his 
attention  been  diverted  just  at  the  critical  moment  by 
the  horse  he  was  riding.  He  paused  in  the  very  act  of 
springing,  as  if  undecided  whether  to  destroy  the  man 
or  the  horse,  and  that  pause  put  the  tamer  on  his  guard, 
while  the  watchful  grooms  rushed  in  through  the  iron 
gates  and  drove  Black  Prince  from  the  ring. 

Speaking  to  me  afterward  of  that  night,  Philadel- 
phia said :  "I  knew  the  critical  moment  had  come,  and 
that  it  would  not  do  to  push  matters  any  farther. 
If  I  had  made  Black  Prince  do  his  jump  when  he 
balked  and  turned  on  me,  he  would  have  sprung  at  my 
throat,  caught  me  between  his  fore  paws,  and  fastened 
his  fangs  in  my  neck  or  breast.  It  would  have  been 
impossible  for  ten  men  to  have  dragged  him  off,  and  I 
should  have  been  killed  there  in  the  sight  of  the  spec- 
tators, just  as  my  nephew,  Albert  Krone,  was  killed  in 
Germany  some  years  ago  by  a  Russian  bear." 

In  conclusion,  let  me  recall  a  night  that  I  spent 
among  the  wild  beasts  of  the  famous  Hagenbeck  me- 
nagerie. That,  by  the  way,  is  a  thing  worth  doing  if 
one  values  strange  sensations. 

It  is  two  hours  after  midnight.  The  snow  lies  crisp 
under  foot,  the  stars  and  electric  lights  shine  quietly 
in  the  still  night.  Before  me  rises  a  big  building,  its 
walls  pictured  with  springing  lions  and  pyramids  of 
tigers.  As  I  enter,  a  long  roar  from  within  tells  me 


THE   WILD-BEAST   TAMER  343 

that  the  animals  are  not  all  asleep.  The  roar,  a  lion's, 
comes  three  times  with  increasing  volume,  and  at  the 
fourth  is  answered  by  another  of  equal  volume;  then 
two  lions  roar  together,  the  sounds  coming  quicker  and 
quicker,  with  an  increasing  staccato  that  ends  finally 
in  hoarse  barks. 

Taking  a  little  alarm-clock  that  the  night  watchman 
loans  me,  I  go  back  among  the  cages,  where  I  am  to 
keep  strange  vigil.  A  small  wooden  door  at  the  right 
takes  me  into  an  open  space  ranged  with  cages  and 
wagons,  the  former  containing  some  barking  dogs. 
From  here  I  pass  into  a  circular  shed,  where  are  more 
wagons  and  dogs,  and  at  the  farther  end  by  the  wet, 
sticky-looking  seals  I  reach  a  small  door  leading  into  a 
low  passage,  beyond  which  are  the  wild  beasts. 

I  push  aside  a  curtain  covering  the  entrance  against 
drafts,  and  see  before  me  a  picture  never  dreamed 
of  by  humdrum  New-Yorkers  sleeping  within  stone's 
throw.  The  cages,  ranged  in  double  row,  form  an 
alleyway,  divided  at  intervals  by  gas-stoves,  on  which 
water  is  heating.  In  front  of  the  big  group  of  lions 
and  tigers  sleeps  one  of  the  grooms,  stretched  on  a  cot 
bed.  He  wears  a  pink  shirt  and  blue  drawers,  and  his 
bare  feet  are  turned  to  the  gas-stove,  which  burns  night 
and  day.  Another  groom  sleeps  farther  on,  beside  the 
Tibet  goats,  and  still  another  near  the  ponies,  oppo- 
site the  small  cage  of  the  lioness  Mignon.  They  sleep 
so  soundly  that  a  riot  would  scarcely  waken  them ;  yet, 
by  some  subtle  sense,  they  would  be  on  the  alert  in 
an  instant  if  anything  were  wrong  in  the  cages. 

Three  animals  rouse  themselves  as  I  step  into  the 
darkness  which  shrouds  the  big  cage — the  lion  Yellow 
Prince  is  one  of  them — and  as  I  approach  the  bars  three 
pairs  of  burning  eyes  glare  at  me  through  the  shadows. 
I  venture  to  turn  on  the  electric  light  and  peer  into 


344  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

the  cage.  Here  are  three  leopards,  the  three  royal 
Bengal  tigers,  and  a  full-grown  lion,  making  no  more 
noise  between  them  than  a  sleeping  child. 

I  return  to  the  farther  end  of  the  shed,  where  the 
five-year-old  lioness  Helena,  alone  in  her  cage,  is  walk- 
ing back  and  forth  drowsily,  as  if  on  the  point  of  drop- 
ping off  for  her  night's  rest.  Indeed,  she  does  this 
presently,  turning  on  her  side,  and  stretching  her  legs 
out  perfectly  straight,  with  no  bend  at  the  joints.  It 
was  Helena  who,  in  a  fit  of  nervous  fright  a  year  or 
two  ago,  sprang  upon  Betty  3tuckart,  the  famous 
prize  beauty,  and  nearly  killed  her.  Since  then  she  has 
lived  in  solitary  confinement. 

The  stillness  now  would  be  absolute  but  for  a  very 
curious  sound,  which  comes  out  of  the  gloom  be- 
yond the  big  cage  of  leopards  and  tigers.  It  is  the 
elephant  Topsy  sleeping.  There  is  no  stranger  sight 
in  a  menagerie  than  that  of  an  elephant  asleep.  The 
huge  legs  are  bent  to  right  angles  at  the  knees,  the 
trunk  is  curled  into  the  mouth,  and  the  whole  suggests 
a  shapeless  mound  of  mud  or  clay,  or  a  half-inflated 
balloon.  Head  and  tail  are  alike;  the  ears  lie  flat; 
the  eyes  are  quite  concealed  in  wrinkled  flesh,  but 
from  somewhere  within  this  seemingly  dead  mass 
comes  a  long,  hissing  sound,  like  the  exhaust  from  a 
steam-pipe.  This  sound  continues  for  several  seconds 
and  then  stops,  to  be  repeated  after  an  interval  of 
silence. 

So  complete  is  the  illusion  of  the  sleeping  elephant's 
not  being  alive  at  all,  but  only  a  mound  of  dead  matter, 
that,  abstractedly,  I  set  the  alarm-clock  down  upon  the 
flat  bone  of  the  forehead.  No  sooner  have  I  done  so 
than  I  spring  back  startled,  leaving  the  clock  ticking 
on  the  elephant's  head.  There  has  been  no  noke  or 
movement,  no  indication  of  displeasure,  no  effort  to  do 


A   ROYAL  BENGAL  TIGER. 


346  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

me  harm.  But  suddenly,  in  the  middle  of  the  huge, 
mud-colored  mass  there  has  appeared  a  round,  red 
circle  about  two  inches  in  diameter.  The  elephant  has 
simply  opened  his  eye.  The  eye  does  not  roll,  or  move, 
or  wink.  It  merely  remains  open  on  me  for  a  few  sec- 
onds, a  round,  staring  circle,  and  then  disappears  as 
suddenly  as  it  came. 

Leaving  Topsy,  I  resume  my  wanderings  among 
the  cages.  The  whole  place  is  asleep,  and  I  am  seized 
with  intense  desire  to  awaken  something.  I  take  a 
long  straw,  and  tickle  Black  Prince  on  his  black  nose. 
His  eyes  open  instantly,  and  the  heavy  paw  swings 
round  like  the  working-beam  of  an  engine,  only  more 
quickly,  to  crush  the  straw  for  its  impertinence.  I 
tickle  him  again,  and  again  he  strikes,  with  force 
enough  to  knock  down  a  horse.  As  I  continue,  his 
blows  grow  quicker  and  heavier,  and  his  big  tusks 
snap  at  the  troublesome  straw.  Finally,  in  despera- 
tion, he  starts  up,  and,  throwing  back  his  magnificent 
head,  looks  at  me  out  of  his  brown,  wicked  eyes,  lifts 
his  chin,  curls  down  his  lower  lip  a  little,  and  bellows 
forth  a  low,  plaintive  sound,  more  like  the  mooing  of  a 
cow  than  the  roar  of  a  lion.  Then,  apparently  ashamed 
of  this  uninspiring  sound,  he  shakes  his  mane  and  roars 
in  .genuine  lion  fashion. 

So  the  hours  of  the  night  pass,  and  at  last,  having 
seen  everything  and  grown  weary  of  experiments,  I 
seat  myself  on  a  trunk  near  Black  Prince's  cage,  and 
am  soon  buried  in  my  meditations.  The  tips  of  the 
tigers'  noses  begin  to  change  from  red  to  green,  and 
then  back  again;  the  leopards'  tails  are  no  longer 
straight,  but  end  in  snake-heads  with  forked  tongues 
darting  out.  I  overhear  curious  conversations  among 
the  lions,  and  presently  men  in  blue  shirts  and  pink 
drawers  come  marching  past,  each  carrying  an  alarm- 


THE   WILD-BEAST   TAMER  347 

clock.  Then  a  curious  thing  happens:  with  a  sweep 
of  her  trunk,  the  elephant  Topsy  lifts  Jocko,  the  mon- 
key, out  of  his  red  box. 

"You  must  unlock  the  cages,"  says  Topsy. 

"All  right,"  says  Jocko.     And  he  does. 

Then  all  the  lions,  tigers,  leopards,  boar-hounds, 
Tibet  goats,  bears,  ponies,  and  wild  boars  join  in  the 
procession,  while  the  alarm-clocks  beat  time.  Black 
Prince  walks  first,  and,  presently  wheeling  the  line 
towrard  me,  lifts  his  fore  paw  and  says : 

"Mein  Herr,  it  is  six  o'clock." 


THE   DYNAMITE  WORKER 

i 

THE  STORY  OF  SOME  MILLIONAIRE  HEROES  AND 
THE  WORLD'S  GREATEST  POWDER  EXPLOSION 

r  I  AHERE  is  illustrated  in  this  career  of  the  explosive 
A  maker  a  splendid  fact  touching  courage,  that,  once 
a  man  has  begun  to  practise  it,  the  habit  holds  him  with 
stronger  and  stronger  grip,  so  that  he  must  be  brave 
whether  he  will  or  no.  I  think  a  fireman,  for  instance, 
who  for  years  had  jumped  at  the  tap  of  a  bell  into  any 
peril,  would  show  the  same  fine  courage  all  alone,  let 
us  say,  in  some  crisis  on  a  desert  island.  He  could  n't 
turn  coward  if  he  tried. 

It  is  good  to  know,  too,  that  these  fearless  qualities 
may  be  transmitted  from  father  to  son,  so  that  we  have 
whole  families  born,  as  it  were,  to  be  brave,  and  we  see 
the  son  of  a  pilot  facing  the  seasick  torture  for  twenty- 
odd  years,  as  his  father  faced  it  before  him  for  thirty. 
Nor  is  it  possible  to  be  in  close  relations  with  a  very 
brave  man  without  yielding  in  some  measure  to  his 
personality;  heroes  produce  heroes  through  a  sort  of 
neighborhood  influence,  just  as  surely  as  thieves  pro- 
duce their  kind.  Thus  the  brother-in-law  of  a  lion- 
tamer,  though  previously  a  mild  enough  man,  takes  to 
taming  lions,  and  does  it  well.  And  wives  of  acro- 
bats find  themselves  one  day  quietly  facing  perils  of 
the  air  that  would  surely  have  blanched  their  cheeks 
had  they  married,  let  us  say,  photographers. 

348 


THE  DYNAMITE  WORKER  349 

All  of  which  brings  me  to  a  remarkable  family  of 
explosive  makers — the  Duponts  of  Wilmington,  who 
for  generations  now  have  had  practical  monopoly  in 
this  country  of  the  powder-making  business,  including 
dynamite  and  nitroglycerin.  In  this  enterprise  a  great 
fortune  has  accumulated,  so  that  the  Duponts  of  to-day 
are  very  rich  men,  far  beyond  any  need  of  working  in 
the  mills  themselves,  and  have  been  for  years.  Yet, 
work  in  the  mills  they  do,  all  of  them,  practically,  and 
direct  in  detail  every  process  of  manufacture,  and  face 
continually  in  their  own  persons  the  same  terrible  dan- 
gers that  the  humblest  mixer  faces.  There  has  grown 
in  their  hearts  through  the  century,  along  with  riches, 
a  great  pride  of  courage,  like  that  of  the  officer  who 
leads  his  men  into  battle — a  pride  far  stronger  than 
any  longing  for  idleness  or  pleasure.  And  they  can- 
not, if  they  would,  leave  these  slow-grinding  mills, 
where  any  day  a  spark  may  bring  catastrophe  to  make 
the  whole  land  shudder,  as  it  has  shuddered  many  times 
after  the  fury  of  these  giant  magazines. 

There  came  a  day,  for  instance — this  was  a  long  time 
ago — when  a  swift  flame  swept  through  one  of  the 
mixing-rooms,  nearly  empty  of  powder  at  the  time, 
yet  so  permeated  with  the  stuff  in  floor  and  walls  that 
instantly  the  building  was  burning  fiercely.  No  man 
can  say  what  started  it.  The  cause  of  trouble  at 
a  powder-mill  is  seldom  known;  it  comes  too  quickly, 
and  usually  leaves  no  witness.  A  nail  overlooked  in 
a  workman's  heel  may  have  done  the  harm  by  striking 
a  stone,  though  of  course  there  is  an  imperative  rule 
that  all  footgear  made  with  nails  be  left  outside  the 
walls ;  or  a  heavy  box  slid  along  the  wooden  floor  may 
have  brought  a  flash  out  of  the  dry  timbers.  At  any 
rate,  the  flash  came,  and  the  blaze  followed  on  it  so 
swiftly  that  the  building  was  wrapped  in  fire  before  men 


350  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

inside  could  reach  the  door,  and  they  presently  burst 
out  blazing  themselves,  for  their  clothing,  as  it  must  be, 
was  sifted  through  with  explosive  dust.  Indeed,  it  is  al- 
ways true  in  fires  at  powder-mills  that  the  workmen 
themselves  are  a  serious  menace  to  the  buildings  by  rea- 
son of  their  own  inflammability. 

So  the  next  thing  was  a  plunge  into  the  placid  Bran- 
clywine,  which  winds  across  the  yards  between  willow- 
hung  banks.  In  went  the  men,  in  went  young  Alexis 
Dupont,  and  with  a  little  hiss  their  flaming  garments 
were  extinguished.  Then,  as  they  struck  out  into  the 
stream,  they  looked  back  and  saw  that  the  wind  was 
carrying  a  shower  of  sparks  from  the  burning  building 
to  the  roof  of  a  cutting-mill  near  by,  where  tons  of 
powder  lay.  For  one  of  the  sparks  to  reach  the  tiniest 
powder  train  would  mean  the  blowing  up  of  this  mill, 
and  almost  certainly  the  blowing  up  of  another  and  an- 
other by  the  concussion,  for  it  is  in  vain  that  they  try 
to  protect  powder-mills  by  scattering  them  over  wide 
yards  in  many  little  buildings.  When  one  explodes, 
the  great  shock  usually  sets  off  others,  as  a  falling 
rock  turns  loose  an  avalanche. 

All  this  young  Dupont  realized  in  a  single  glance. 
There  would  be  an  awful  disaster  presently,  with  many 
lives  imperiled,  unless  those  falling  firebrands  could 
somehow  be  kept  off  that  roof.  To  know  this  was  to 
act.  Millionaire  or  not,  peril  or  not,  it  was  his  plain 
duty  as  a  Dupont  to  fight  those  sparks,  and,  without  a 
moment's  wavering,  he  turned  back  and  scrambled  up 
the  bank. 

"Come  on,  boys !"  he  cried ;  "start  the  bucket  line," 
and  a  moment  later  he  was  climbing  to  the  roof  of 
the  threatened  mill,  where  he  did  all  that  a  brave 
man  can  do — stamped  out  the  falling  embers,  dashed 
water  again  and  again  upon  the  kindling  fire  as  the 


YOUNG   DUPONT   WORKING   TO    SAVE   THE   POWDER-MILL. 


352  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

men  passed  up  full  buckets,  and  for  a  time  seemed 
to  conquer.  But  presently  the  fire  flamed  hotter,  the 
sparks  came  faster,  and  the  water  came  not  fast  enough. 
He  saw — he  must  have  seen — that  the  struggle  was 
hopeless,  that  the  mill  beneath  him  was  doomed,  that 
the  explosion  must  come  soon.  From  the  ground  they 
shouted,  calling  on  him  to  save  himself.  He  shouted 
back  an  order  that  they  pass  up  more  water,  and  keep 
passing  water.  There  was  only  one  thing  in  the  world 
he  wanted — water. 

The  men  below  did  their  best,  but  it  was  a  vain  ef- 
fort, for  in  those  days  the  roofs  of  powder-mills  were 
made  of  pitch  and  cement — not  of  iron,  as  to-day— 
and  by  this  time  the  fire  had  eaten  its  way  nearly 
through.  Alexis  Dupont,  working  desperately,  stood 
there  with  flames  spreading  all  around  him.  It  was 
plain  to  every  one  that  the  minutes  of  his  life  were 
numbered.  Again  they  shouted — and — 

The  explosion  came  like  an  execution,  and  out  of 
the  wreck  of  it  they  bore  away  his  crushed  and  broken 
body.  The  last  thing  he  knew  was  that  he  had  played 
the  game  out  fairly  to  the  end — he  died  like  a  Dupont, 
said  the  men. 

Such  was  the  spirit  of  the  second  generation  (Alexis 
Dupont  was  a  son  of  old  Eleuthere,  founder  of  the 
line),  and  later  we  find  the  same  courage  in  the  third 
generation,  as  on  March  29,  1884,  when  La  Motte 
Dupont,  one  of  the  grandchildren,  took  his  stand  inside 
the  dynamite-mill — his  mill — when  it  was  threatened 
by  fire,  and  stayed  there  after  every  man  had  left  it, 
struggling  with  hand  and  brain  against  the  danger 
until  the  explosion,  coming  like  a  thousand  cannon, 
crashed  his  body  deep  into  a  sand-heap  and  left  it  with 
the  life  gone  out. 

I  suppose  this  is  only  an  instance  of  nature's  ten- 


THE  DYNAMITE  WORKER  353 

clency  to  furnish  always  what  is  needed,  to  raise  up  a 
hero  for  each  emergency ;  but  it  is  encouraging  to  know 
that  the  very  finest  kind  of  courage  may  be  thus  devel- 
oped by  the  mere  pressure  of  moral  responsibility  in  a 
man  under  no  master,  but  free  to  be  a  craven  if  he 
will.  We  have  seen  something  like  this  in  the  splen- 
did devotion  of  fire-department  chiefs,  who  often  out- 
shine all  their  men  simply  because  they  cannot  resist 
the  gallant  spirit  in  their  own  hearts. 

Now  for  the  exception  to  this  rule  of  persisting 
courage,  an  exception  sometimes  presented  in  the  lives 
of  explosive  makers  (and  in  the  other  lives,  too),  and 
showing  that  in  certain  cases  courage  may  suddenly 
and  strangely  disappear.  A  man  may  be  brave  for 
years,  and  then  cease  to  be  brave.  The  wild-beast 
tamer  may  awaken  some  morning  and  discover  himself 
afraid  of  his  lions.  The  steeple-climber  who  has  never 
flinched  at  any  height  may  shrink  at  last.  The  pilot 
in  the  rapids,  the  acrobat  on  his  swing,  the  diver  sink- 
ing to  a  wreck,  may  feel  a  quaking  of  heart  unknown 
before.  Here  is  apparent  contradiction,  for  how  can 
courage  be  made  by  habit  and  then  unmade?  I  don't 
know.  I  merely  give  the  facts  as  I  have  found  them, 
and  it  is  quite  certain  that  a  sturdy  Irishman  who  has 
shoveled  powder  all  his  life  and  waded  in  it  knee-deep, 
as  if  it  were  so  much  coal-dust,  may,  for  no  reason  he 
can  put  finger  on,  find  himself  lying  awake  of  nights 
reflecting  on  what  would  happen  if  a  spark  should 
strike  under  one  of  the  big  rollers  he  feeds  so  carelessly, 
or,  remembering  uneasily  that  dream  of  his  wife's 
about  a  white  horse — every  powder-man  knows  the 
close  relation  between  dreams  and  explosions,  and — 
well,  they  will  all  tell  you  this,  that  the  only  thing  for 
a  man  to  do  when  his  heart  feels  the  cold  touch  of  fear 
is  to  quit  his  job.  If  he  does  n't  his  knell  is  sounded,  he 

23 


354  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 


is  marked  for  sacrifice,  his  tigers  will  rend  him,  the  deep 
waters  will  overwhelm  him,  a  swift  fall  will  crush 
him — he  will  surely  die. 

The  greatest  catastrophe  in  the  records  of  powder- 
making  came  because  a  man  ignored  such  plain  warn- 
ing of  his  own  fear.  At  least,  the  workmen  at  the 

Dupont  mills  will 
tell  you  this  if  you 
can  get  them  to 
break  through  their 
usual  reserve.  The 
man  was  William 
Green,  and,  what- 
ever his  fault,  he 
paid  the  fullest 
price  for  it.  Green 
was  stationed  in 
one  of  the  maga- 
zines, with  the  re- 
sponsibility of  seal- 
ing up  hexagonal 
powder,  a  very 
powerful  kind  used 
by  the  government 
in  heavy  guns. 
This  powder  comes 

pressed  into  little  six-sided  cakes  of  reddish  color, 
which  are  packed  in  large  wooden  boxes  lined  with  tin, 
and  it  was  Green's  duty  to  solder  the  tin  covers  tight 
with  a  hot  iron.  In  each  box  there  was  enough  of  this 
powder  to  blow  up  a  fortress,  and  it  is  no  wonder  the 
occupation  finally  told  on  Green's  nerves.  He  said  to 
his  wife  that  sooner  or  later  a  speck  of  grit  would  touch 
his  iron  and  make  a  spark,  and  then —  The  theory  is 
that  a  spark  is  required  to  explode  powder  which  will 


EFFECTS  OF  DYNAMITE  EXPLODED  UNDER  WATER. 


THE  DYNAMITE  WORKER  355 

only  burn  harmlessly  at  the  touch  of  a  hot  iron  or  a 
flame. 

However  this  may  be  (and  I  should  add  that  the 
theory  is  disputed),  Green  felt  that  he  was  in  danger, 
and  by  that  fact,  say  the  powder-men,  if  for  no  other 
reason,  he  was  in  danger.  And  one  day — it  was  Octo- 
ber 7,  1890 — the  spark  came;  surely  that  was  a  most 
important  spark,  for  it  caused  the  explosion  of  one 
hundred  and  fifty  tons  of  gunpowder,  the  instant  death 
of  thirteen  men  and  one  woman,  and  the  serious  or 
fatal  injury  of  twenty-two  men  and  nine  women. 

Only  an  earthquake  could  have  wrought  such  terrible 
destruction.  The  city  of  Wilmington  was  shaken  to  its 
foundations.  Great  chasms  were  rent  in  the  solid  rock 
under  the  exploding  magazines.  Trees  were  torn  up  by 
the  roots.  Iron  castings,  weighing  tons,  were  hurled 
clean  across  the  Brandywine.  Iron  columns  thick  as  a 
man's  waist  were  twisted  and  bent  like  copper  wire. 
Horses  outside  the  yards  were  found  with  legs  missing ; 
men  were  found  stripped  clean  of  their  clothes,  and  this 
curious  fact  was  developed,  that  a  man  or  a  horse  in 
the  region  of  explosion  would  have  shoes  blown  from 
the  feet  (iron  shoes  or  leather  shoes)  if  the  legs  were 
on  the  ground  at  the  moment  of  shock,  but  would  keep 
shoes  on  if  the  legs  were  lifted.  Thus  poor  Green  was 
found  with  both  feet  shod,  and  so  identified,  although 
his  body  had  no  other  stitch  of  covering,  and  the  ex- 
planation was  that  he  probably  saw  the  spark  in  time 
to  spring  away,  and  was  actually  in  the  air  when  the 
explosion  came. 

In  my  investigations  I  have  heard  various  stories 
showing  what  uncertainty  there  is  as  to  the  behavior 
of  dynamite  in  the  presence  of  fire.  Workmen  who 
handle  it  constantly  in  blasting  operations  say  you 
can  put  fire  to  a  stick  of  dynamite  without  danger, 


356  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

and  it  will  simply  burn  away  in  bluish  flame.  On  the 
other  hand,  they  admit  that  in  every  fifty  or  a  hundred 
sticks  there  may  be  one  where  the  touch  of  fire  will 
bring  explosion. 

It  is  quite  certain  this  was  the  case  in  New  York's 


THE   EXPLOSION 


recent  tunnel  accident  near  One  Hundred  and  Eightieth 
Street,  and  I  have  some  facts  of  interest  here  obtained 
from  a  workman  who  was  in  the  main  gallery  at  the 
time.  This  man  heard  a  shout  of  warning,  and,  look- 
ing down  the  rock  street,  saw  a  puddle  of  blazing  oil 
from  one  of  the  lamps  lapping  at  the  side  of  a  heavy 
wooden  box.  He  knew  that  the  box  was  full  of  dyna- 
mite, and  as  he  looked  he  saw  the  yellow  oil  flame  turn 


THE  DYNAMITE  WORKER  357 

to  blue.  That  was  enough  for  him,  and  he  started  to 
run  for  his  life.  But  the  explosion  caught  him  in  the 
first  step,  lifted  him  from  the  ground,  and  bore  him  on, 
while  his  legs  kept  up  the  motions  of  running.  He  was 
running  on  the  air. 

As  he  was  thus  hurled  along  his  knee  struck  a  large 
stone  between  the  siding  and  the  north  heading,  and 
he  fell  on  his  face,  half  dazed.  The  air  was  thick  with 
strangling  fumes,  there  was  a  frightful  din  about 
him — yells  and  crashing  stones.  Every  lamp  had  been 
blown  out,  and  in  the  utter  darkness  he  could  see  the 
glaring  eyeballs  of  fleeing  negroes,  who  cursed  in 
awful  oaths  as  they  ran.  He  pressed  his  mouth  close 
to  the  ground,  and  found  he  could  breathe  better.  He 
felt  some  one  step  over  him,  and  seized  a  leg.  The  leg 
kicked  itself  free  and  went  on.  He  groped  about  with 
his  hands,  and  touched  an  iron  rail ;  it  was  the  little 
track  for  hauling  the  dumping-cars.  He  crept  along 
this  painfully  to  the  siding,  then  down  the  siding  to  the 
shaft,  where,  in  the  blackness,  he  found  a  frantic  com- 
pany— negroes  mad  with  fright,  Italians  screaming  and 
praying,  Irishmen  keeping  fairly  cool,  but  wondering 
why,  oh,  why!  the  elevator  did  not  come,  and  several 
men  stretched  on  the  ground  quite  still  or  groaning 
quietly. 

Time  lacks  for  the  rest  of  the  story;  they  took  out 
men  dressed  in  a  collar  and  shirt-band  only — every- 
thing else  blown  off,  and  some  whose  faces  were  mot- 
tled with  fragments  of  stone,  a  kind  of  dynamite  tat- 
tooing, and  some  grievously  injured.  There  are  no 
limits  to  the  fury  of  dynamite,  once  it  sets  out  to  be 
cruel. 


II 


WE    VISIT    A    DYNAMITE-FACTORY    AND    MEET    A 

MAN    WHO    THINKS    COURAGE    IS 

AN    ACCIDENT 

ON  a  certain  pleasant  morning  in  June,  I  set  forth 
to  visit  a  dynamite-factory,  and  see  with  my  own 
eyes,  if  might  be,  some  of  the  men  who  follow  this 
strange  and  hazardous  business.  As  the  train  rushed 
along  I  thought  of  the  power  for  good  and  evil  that 
is  in  this  wonderful  agent :  dynamite  piercing  moun- 
tains; dynamite  threatening  armies  and  blowing  up 
great  ships;  a  teacupful  of  dynamite  shattering  a  for- 
tress, a  teaspoonful  of  the  essence  of  dynamite — that  is, 
nitroglycerin — tearing  a  man  to  atoms.  What  kind 
of  fellows  must  they  be  who  spend  their  lives  making 
dynamite ! 

In  due  course  I  found  myself  back  in  the  hill  land 
of  northern  New  Jersey,  where  everything  is  green  and 
quiet,  a  lovely  summer's  retreat  with  nothing  in  ex- 
ternal signs  to  suggest  an  industry  of  violence.  Stop ; 
here  is  a  sign,  though  it  does  n't  seem  much  :  two  sleepy 
wagons  lumbering  along  the  road  between  these  cool 
woods  and  the  waving  fields.  Farm  produce?  Lum- 
ber? No.  The  first  is  loaded  with  a  sort  of  yellow 
meal,  and  trails  the  way  with  yellow  sprinklings.  That 
is  sulphur.  They  use  it  at  the  works.  The  second  is 
piled  up  with  crates,  out  of  which  come  thick  glass 
necks  like  the  heads  of  imprisoned  turkeys.  These 
are  carboys  of  nitric  acid,  hundreds  of  gallons  of  that 

358 


THE  DYNAMITE  WORKER  359 

terrible  stuff  which  is  so  truly  liquid  fire  that  a  single 
drop  of  it  on  a  piece  of  board  will  set  the  wood  in 
flames.  This  nitric  acid  mixed  with  innocent  sweet 
glycerin  (it  comes  along  the  road  in  barrels)  makes 
nitroglycerin,  and  the  proper  mixing  of  these  two  is 
the  chief  business  of  a  dynamite-factory. 

Farther  down  the  road  I  came  to  a  railroad  track 
where  a  long  freight-train  was  standing  on  a  siding. 
Some  men  were  busy  here  loading  a  car  with  clean- 
looking  wooden  boxes  that  might  have  held  starch  or 
soap,  but  did  hold  dynamite  neatly  packed  in  long,  fat 
sticks  like  huge  fire-crackers.  Each  box  bore  this  in- 
scription in  red  letters:  HIGH  EXPLOSIVES.  DANGER- 
OUS. I  looked  along  the  train  and  saw  that  there  were 
several  cars  closed  and  sealed,  with  a  sign  nailed  on  the 
outside:  POWDER.  HANDLE  CAREFULLY. 

In  this  case  "powder"  means  dynamite,  for  the  prod- 
uct of  a  dynamite-factory  is  always  called  powder.  I 
think  the  men  feel  more  comfortable  when  they  use 
that  milder  name.  There  was  "powder"  enough  on 
this  train  to  wreck  a  city,  but  nobody  seemed  to  mind. 
The  horses  switched  their  tails.  The  men  laughed  and 
loitered.  They  might  have  been  laying  bricks,  for  any 
interest  they  showed. 

I  asked  one  of  them  if  it  is  considered  safe  to  haul 
car-loads  of  dynamite  about  the  country.  He  said  that 
some  people  consider  it  safe,  and  some  do  not;  some 
railroads  will  carry  dynamite,  while  others  refuse  it. 

"Suppose  a  man  were  to  shoot  a  rifle-ball  into  one 
of  these  cars,"  I  asked,  "do  you  think  it  would  ex- 
plode?" 

This  led  to  an  argument.  One  of  the  group  was 
positive  it  would  explode.  Concussion,  he  declared, 
is  the  thing  that  sets  off  dynamite.  Another  knew 
of  experiments  at  the  works  where  they  had  fired  rifle- 


360  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

balls  into  quantities  of  dynamite,  and  found  that  some- 
times it  exploded  and  sometimes  it  did  n't. 

Then  a  third  man  spoke  up  with  an  air  of  authority. 
"You  've  got  to  have  a  red  spark/'  said  he,  "to  set  off 
dynamite.  I  've  handled  it  long  enough  to  know. 
Here  's  an  experiment  that  's  been  tried :  They  took 
an  old  flat-car  and  loaded  it  with  rocks ;  then  they  fas- 
tened a  box  of  dynamite  to  the  bumper,  and  let  the  car 
run  down  a  steep  grade,  bang!  into  another  car  an- 
chored at  the  bottom.  And  they  found  that  the  dyna- 
mite never  exploded  unless  the  bumpers  were  faced 
with  iron.  It  did  n't  matter  how  much  concussion  they 
got  with  wooden  bumpers,  the  dynamite  was  like  that 
much  putty;  but  as  soon  as  a  red  spark  jumped  into  it 
out  of  the  iron,  why,  off  she  'd  go." 

Then  he  instanced  various  cases  where  powder-cars 
had  gone  through  railroad  wrecks  without  exploding, 
although  boxes  of  dynamite  had  been  smashed  open 
and  scattered  about. 

"How  about  that  car  of  ours  the  other  day  up  in 
central  New  York?"  said  the  first  man.  "Everything 
blown  to  pieces,  and  six  lads  killed." 

He  smiled  grimly,  but  the  other  persisted  :  "That  col- 
lision only  proves  what  I  say.  There  was  a  red-hot 
locomotive  plowing  through  a  car  of  dynamite,  and 
of  course  she  went  up.  But  it  was  n't  the  concussion 
did  it;  it  was  the  sparks." 

"You  say  that  it  takes  a  red  spark,"  I  observed,  "to 
set  off  dynamite.  Do  you  mean  that  a  white  spark 
would  n't  do  it?" 

"That  's  what  I  mean,"  said  he.  "It  seems  queer, 
but  it  's  a  fact.  Put  a  white-hot  poker  into  a  box  of 
dynamite,  and  it  will  only  burn :  but  let  the  poker  cool 
down  until  it  's  only  red-hot  and  the  dynamite  will  ex- 
plode." 


"EVERYTHING  WAS  BLOWN  TO  PIECES," 


362  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

Pondering  this  remarkable  statement,  I  continued  on 
my  way,  and  presently,  not  seeing  any  big  building, 
asked  a  farmer  where  the  Atlantic  Dynamite  Works 
were.  He  swept  the  horizon  with  his  arm,  and  said 
they  were  all  about  us ;  they  covered  hundreds  of  acres 
—little,  low  buildings  placed  far  apart,  so  that  if  one 
exploded  it  would  n't  set  off  the  rest. 

"The  dynamite-magazines  are  along  the  hillside 
yonder,"  he  said.  "If  they  went  up,  I  guess  there 
would  n't  be  much  left  of  the  town." 

"What  town?"  said  I. 

"Why,  Kenvil.  That  's  where  the  dynamite-mixers 
live.  It  's  over  there.  Quickest  way  is  across  this 
field  and  over  the  fence." 

I  followed  his  advice,  and  presently  passed  near  a 
number  of  small  brick  buildings  so  very  innocent-look- 
ing that  I  found  myself  saying,  "What !  this  blow  up, 
or  that  little  sputtering  shanty  wreck  a  town?"  It 
seemed  ridiculous.  I  learned  afterward  that  I  had 
walked  through  the  most  dangerous  part  of  the  works ; 
it  is  n't  size  here  that  counts. 

I  paused  at  several  open  doors,  and  got  a  whiff  of 
chemicals  that  made  me  understand  the  dynamite-sick- 
ness of  which  I  had  heard.  No  man  can  breathe  the 
strangling  fumes  of  nitric  acid  and  nitrated  glycerin 
without  discomfort,  and  every  man  here  must  breathe 
them.  They  rise  from  vats  and  troughs  like  brownish- 
yellow  smoke;  they  are  in  the  mixing-rooms,  in  the 
packing-rooms,  in  the  freezing-house,  in  the  separating- 
house,  everywhere;  and  they  take  men  in  the  throat, 
and  make  their  hearts  pound  strangely,  and  set  their 
heads  splitting  with  pain.  Not  a  workman  escapes  the 
dynamite-headache;  new  hands  are  wretched  with  it 
for  a  fortnight,  and  even  the  well-seasoned  men  get  a 
touch  of  it  on  Monday  mornings  after  the  Sunday  rest. 


THE  DYNAMITE  WORKER  363 

In  walking  about  the  works  I  noticed  that  the  sev- 
eral buildings,  representing  different  steps  in  the  manu- 
facture of  explosives,  are  united  by  long  troughs  or 
pipes  sufficiently  inclined  to  allow  the  nitroglycerin  to 
flow  by  its  own  weight  from  one  building  to  another, 
so  that  you  watch  the  first  operations  in  dynamite- 
making  at  the  top  of  a  slope,  and  the  last  ones  at  the 
bottom.  Of  course  this  transportation  by  flow  is  pos- 
sible for  nitroglycerin  only  while  it  is  a  liquid,  and  not 
after  it  has  been  absorbed  by  porous  earth  and  given  the 
name  of  dynamite  and  the  look  of  moist  sawdust.  As 
dynamite  it  is  transported  between  buildings  on  little 
railroads,  with  horses  to  haul  the  cars. 

I  noted  also  that  most  of  the  buildings  are  built 
against  a  hillside  or  surrounded  by  heavy  mounds  of 
earth,  so  that  if  one  of  them  blows  up,  the  others  may 
be  protected  against  the  flight  of  debris.  Without 
such  barricade  the  shattered  walls  and  rocks  would  be 
hurled  in  all  directions  with  the  energy  of  cannon- 
balls,  and  a  single  explosion  would  probably  mean  the 
destruction  of  the  entire  works. 

At  one  place  I  saw  a  triangular  frame  of  timbers 
and  iron  supporting  a  five-hundred-pound  swinging 
mortar,  that  hung  down  like  a  great  gipsy  kettle  under 
its  tripod.  In  front  of  this  mortar  was  a  sand-heap, 
and  here,  I  learned,  were  made  the  tests  of  dynamite, 
a  certain  quantity  of  this  lot  or  that  being  exploded 
against  the  sand-heap,  and  the  mortar's  swing  back 
from  the  recoil  giving  a  measure  of  its  force.  The 
more  nitroglycerin  there  is  in  a  given  lot  of  dynamite, 
the  farther  back  the  mortar  will  swing.  It  should  be 
understood  that  there  are  many  different  grades  of 
dynamite,  the  strength  of  these  depending  upon  how 
much  nitroglycerin  has  been  absorbed  by  a  certain  kind 
of  porous  earth. 


364  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

In  a  little  white  house  beyond  the  laboratory  I  found 
the  superintendent  of  the  works,  a  man  of  few  words, 
accustomed  to  give  brief  orders  and  have  them  obeyed. 
He  did  not  care  to  talk  about  dynamite — they  never 
do.  He  did  not  think  there  was  much  to  say,  anyhow, 
except  that  people  have  silly  notions  about  the  danger. 
He  had  been  working  with  dynamite  now  for  twenty- 
five  years,  and  never  had  an  accident — that  is,  himself. 
Oh,  yes ;  some  men  had  been  killed  in  his  time,  but  not 
so  many  as  in  other  occupations — not  nearly  so  many 
as  in  railroading.  Of  course  there  was  danger  in 
dealing  with  any  great  force ;  the  thing  would  run  away 
with  you  now  and  then :  but  on  the  whole  he  regarded 
dynamite  as  a  very  well  behaved  commodity,  and  much 
slandered. 

"Then  you  think  dynamite- workers  have  no  great 
need  of  courage?"  I  suggested. 

"No  more  than  others.  Why  should  they?  They 
work  along  for  years,  and  nothing  happens.  They 
might  as  well  be  shoveling  coal.  And  if  anything  does 
happen,  it  's  over  so  quick  that  courage  is  n't  much 
use." 

Having  said  this,  he  hesitated  a  moment,  and  then, 
as  if  in  a  spirit  of  fairness,  told  of  a  certain  man  at 
the  head  of  a  nitroglycerin-mill  who  on  one  occasion 
did  do  a  little  thing  that  some  people  called  brave. 
He  would  n't  give  the  name  of  this  "certain  man," 
but  I  fancied  I  could  guess  it. 

This  nitroglycerin-mill,  it  seems,  was  on  the  Pacific 
coast,  whence  they  used  to  ship  the  dynamite  on  ves- 
sels that  loaded  right  alongside  the  yards.  One  day 
a  mixing-house  exploded,  and  hurled  burning  timbers 
over  a  vessel  lying  near  that  had  just  received  a  fresh 
cargo.  Her  decks  were  piled  with  boxes  of  explosives 
— wooden  boxes,  which  at  once  took  fire.  When  this 


'HE  WENT  TO  WORK  THROWING  WATER  ON  THE  BURNING  BOXES. 


366  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

' 'certain  man"  rushed  down  to  the  dock,  the  situation 
was  as  bad  as  could  be.  There  were  tons  of  dynamite 
ready  to  explode,  and  a  hot  fire  was  eating  deeper  into 
the  wood  with  every  second.  And  all  the  workmen  had 
run  for  their  lives ! 

"Well,"  said  the  superintendent,  "what  this  man  did 
was  to  grab  a  bucket  and  line,  and  jump  on  the  deck. 
Yes,  it  was  burning;  everything  was  burning.  But 
he  went  to  work  lowering  the  bucket  overside  and 
throwing  water  on  the  flaming  boxes.  After  a  while 
he  put  'em  out,  and  the  dynamite  did  n't  explode  at  all ; 
but  it  would  have  exploded  in  a  mighty  short  time  if 
he  had  kept  away,  for  the  wood  was  about  burned 
through  in  several  places.  I  know  that  's  a  true  story, 
because,  well — because  I  know  it." 

"Don't  you  call  that  man  brave?"  I  asked. 

The  superintendent  shook  his  head.  "He  was  brave 
in  that  particular  instance,  but  he  might  not  have  been 
brave  at  another  time.  You  never  can  tell  what  a 
man  will  do  in  danger.  It  depends  on  how  he  feels  or 
on  how  a  thing  happens  to  strike  him.  A  man  might 
act  like  a  hero  one  day  and  like  a  coward  another  day, 
with  exactly  the  same  danger  in  both  cases.  There  's 
a  lot  of  chance  in  it.  If  that  man  I  'm  telling  you 
about  had  been  up  late  the  night  before,  or  had  eaten  a 
tough  piece  of  steak  for  breakfast,  the  chances  are  he 
would  have  run  like  the  rest." 


Ill 


HOW    JOSHUA    PLUMSTEAD    STUCK    TO    HIS    NITRO- 

GLYCERIN-VAT    IN    AN    EXPLOSION    AND 

SAVED    THE    WORKS 

I  DROVE  over  from  the  works  to  Kenvil  under  the 
escort  of  a  red-nosed  man  who  discoursed  on  local 
matters,  particularly  on  the  prospects  of  his  youngest 
son,  who  was  eighteen  years  old  and  earned  three  dol- 
lars a  day. 

" What  does  he  do?"  I  asked. 

"He  's  a  packer,"  said  the  red-nosed  man. 

"What  does  he  pack?" 

"Dynamite.  Guess  there  ain't  no  other  stuff  he  c'd 
pack  an'  get  them  wages.  Jest  the  same,  I  wish  he  'd 
quit,  specially  sence  the  big  blow-up  t'  other  day." 

"Why,  what  blew  up?"  I  inquired. 

"Freezing-house  did  with  an  all-fired  big  lot  of  nitro- 
glycerin.  Nobody  knows  what  set  her  off.  Reg'lar 
miracle  there  wa'n't  a  lot  killed.  Man  in  charge, 
feller  named  Ball,  he  went  out  to  look  at  a  water-pipe. 
Had  n't  been  out  the  door  a  minute  when  off  she  went. 
Say,  you  'd  oughter  seen  the  boys  run !  They  tell  me 
some  of  'em  jumped  clean  through  the  winders,  sashes 
an'  all.  If  ye  want  to  know  more  about  it,  there  's  my 
boy  now;  he  was  right  near  the  house  when  it  hap- 
pened." 

Wre  drew  up  at  the  Kenvil  hotel,  where  a  young 
man  was  sitting.  Here  was  the  modern  dynamite- 
worker,  and  not  at  all  as  I  had  pictured  him.  He 

367 


368  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

looked  like  a  summer  boarder  who  liked  to  take  things 
easy  and  wear  good  clothes.  Wondering  much,  I  sat 
down  and  talked  to  this  young  man,  a  skilful  dyrramite- 
packer,  it  appears,  who  happened  at  the  time  to  be 
taking  a  day  off. 

"They  put  me  at  machine-packing  a  few  days  ago," 
he  said,  "and  it  's  made  my  wrist  lame.  Going  to  rest 
until  Monday." 

After  some  preliminaries  I  asked  him  about  the  pro- 
cess of  packing  dynamite,  and  he  explained  how  the 
freshly  mixed  explosive  is  delivered  at  the  various 
packing-houses  in  little  tubs,  a  hundred  pounds  to  a 
tub,  and  how  they  dig  into  it  with  shovels,  and  mold 
it  into  shape  on  the  benches  like  so  much  butter,  and 
ram  it  into  funnels,  and  finally,  with  the  busy  tamping 
of  rubber-shod  sticks,  squeeze  it  down  into  the  paper 
shells  that  form  the  cartridges.  One  would  say  they 
play  with  concentrated  death  as  children  play  with  saw- 
dust dolls,  but  he  declared  it  safe  enough. 

"How  large  are  the  cartridges?"  I  asked. 

"Oh,  different  sizes.  The  smallest  are  about  eight 
inches  long,  and  the  largest  thirty.  And  they  vary 
from  one  inch  thick  up  to  two  and  a  half.  I  know  a 
man  who  carried  a  thirty-inch  cartridge  all  the  way  to 
Morristown  in  an  ordinary  passenger-car.  He  had  it 
wrapped  in  a  newspaper,  under  his  arm  like  a  big  loaf 
of  bread.  But  say,  he  took  chances,  all  right." 

At  this  another  man  informed  us  that  people  often 
carry  nitroglycerin  about  with  them,  and  take  no  risk, 
by  simply  pouring  it  into  a  big  bottle  of  alcohol.  Then 
it  can  do  no  harm ;  and  when  they  want  to  use  the  ex- 
plosive, they  have  only  to  evaporate  the  alcohol. 

The  talk  turned  to  precautions  taken  against  acci- 
dents. In  all  powder-mills  the  workmen  are  required 
to  change  their  clothes  before  entering  the  buildings. 


THE  DYNAMITE  WORKER  369 

and  to  put  on  rubber-soled  shoes.  There  must  be  no 
bit  of  metal  about  a  man's  person,  no  iron  nail  or 
buckle,  nothing  that  could  strike  fire;  and  of  course 
the  workman  who  would  bring  a  match  on  the  premises 
would  be  counted  worse  than  an  assassin. 

"Just  the  same,  though,  matches  get  into  the  works 
once  in  a  while,"  remarked  the  young  packer.  "I 
found  a  piece  of  a  match  one  day  in  a  tub  of  dynamite ; 
it  had  the  head  on,  too.  Say,  it  's  bad  enough  to  find 
buttons  and  pebbles,  but  when  I  saw  that  match-head — 
well,  it  made  me  wreak  in  the  knees." 

This  brought  back  the  old  question,  When  does  dy- 
namite explode,  and  when  does  it  not  explode  ?  I  men- 
tioned the  red-spark  theory. 

"I  think  that  's  correct,"  agreed  the  packer.  "I  've 
watched  "em  burn  old  dynamite-boxes,  and  if  there  are 
iron  nails  in  the  boxes  they  explode  as  soon  as  the  nails 
get  red-hot;  if  there  are  no  nails,  they  don't  explode." 

"You  mean  empty  boxes?"  I  asked. 

"Certainly;  but  there  's  nitroglycerin  in  the  wood, 
lots  of  it.  It  oozes  out  of  the  dynamite,  especially  on 
a  hot  day,  and  soaks  into  everything.  Why,  I  suppose 
there  's  enough  nitroglycerin  in  the  overalls  I  wear  to 
blow  a  man  into — well,  I  would  n't  want  to  lay  'em  on 
an  anvil  and  give  'em  a  whack  with  a  sledge." 

There  was  a  certain  novelty  to  me  in  the  thought  of 
a  pair  of  old  overalls  exploding ;  but  I  was  soon  to  hear 
of  stranger  things.  By  this  time  other  workmen  had 
drawn  up  chairs,  and  were  ready  now  with  modest  con- 
tributions from  their  own  experience. 

"Tell  ye  a  queer  thing,"  said  one  man.  "In  that 
explosion  the  other  day, — I  mean  the  freezing-house, — 
a  car  loaded  with  powder  [dynamite]  had  just  passed, 
not  a  minute  before  the  explosion.  Lucky  for  the  three 
men  with  the  car,  was  n't  it?  But  what  gets  me  is 

24 


3/o  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

how  the  blast,  when  it  came,  blew  the  harness  off  the 
horse.  Yes,  sir;  that  's  what  it  did — clean  off;  and 
away  he  went  galloping  after  the  men  as  hard  as  he 
could  leg  it.  Nobody  touched  a  buckle  or  a  strap.  It 
was  dynamite  unhitched  that  animal." 

"Dynamite  did  another  trick  that  day,"  put  in  a  tall 
man.  "It  caught  a  bird  on  the  wing.  Dunno  whether 
't  was  a  robin  or  a  swaller,  but  't  was  a  bird,  all  right. 
Caught  it  in  a  sheet  of  tin  blowed  off  the  roof,  an'  jest 
twisted  that  little  bird  all  up  as  it  sailed  along,  and 
when  it  struck  the  ground,  there  was  the  bird  fast  in 
a  cage  made  in  the  air  out  of  a  tin  roof.  Alive  ?  Yes, 
sir,  alive;  and  that  shows  how  fast  dynamite  does 
business." 

So  the  talk  ran  on,  with  many  little  details  of  ex- 
plosions. The  expert  explained  that  the  air  waves  of  a 
great  concussion  move  along  with  crests  and  troughs 
like  water  waves,  and  the  shattering  effect  comes  only 
at  the  crests,  so  that  all  the  windows  might  be  broken 
in  a  house,  say,  half  a  mile  from  an  explosion,  and  no 
windows  be  broken  in  a  house  two  hundred  yards 
nearer.  The  first  house  would  have  been  smitten  by  a 
destructive  wave  crest,  the  second  passed  over  by  a 
harmless  wave  trough.  And,  by  the  way,  when  win- 
dows are  broken  by  these  blasts  of  concussion,  it  ap- 
pears that  they  are  usually  broken  outward,  not  in- 
ward, and  that  the  fragments  are  found  on  the  ground 
outside  the  house,  not  on  the  floors  inside.  The  reason 
of  this  is  that  the  concussion  waves  leave  behind  them 
a  partial  vacuum,  and  windows  are  broken  by  the  air 
inside  houses  rushing  out. 

"How  about  thunder-storms?"  I  asked. 

"There  is  always  danger,"  said  the  expert,  "and  all 
hands  hurry  out  of  the  works  as  soon  as  the  lightning 
begins  to  play.  If  a  bolt  struck  a  lot  of  dynamite  it 
would  set  it  off." 


THE  DYNAMITE  WORKER  371 

Then  he  explained  that  the  policy  of  dynamite  manu- 
facturers is  to  handle  explosives  in  small  quantities, 
say  a  ton  at  a  time,  each  lot  being  finished  and  hauled 
away  in  wagons  before  another  lot  is  started.  This  is 
possible  because  of  the  short  time  occupied  in  making 
dynamite.  He  assured  me,  for  instance,  that  if  there 
were  only  raw  materials  at  the  works  on  a  certain 
morning  when  the  seven-o'clock  whistle  blew,  it  would 
be  perfectly  possible  to  have  a  ton  of  dynamite-car- 
tridges finished,  packed  in  boxes,  and  loaded  on  freight- 
cars  by  nine  o'clock. 

After  this  some  one  told  of  a  thrilling  happening  in 
the  mixing-house,  by  the  great  vat,  wherein  nitro- 
glycerin  is  mixed  with  porous  earth,  called  dope,  and 
becomes  dynamite.  Over  this  vat  four  men  work  con- 
tinually, two  with  rakes,  two  with  hoes,  kneading  half 
a  ton  or  more  of  explosive  dough  to  the  proper  con- 
sistency. 

One  clay  a  powder-car  loaded  with  heavy  stone  got 
loose  on  its  track  a  quarter  of  a  mile  up  the  slope,  and 
started  down  the  steep  grade.  The  tracks  ran  straight 
into  the  mixing-house.  The  switch  was  open,  and  the 
first  thing  these  men  knew,  there  was  an  angry  clang 
at  the  switch,  and  then  a  swift,  heavy  car  was  plunging 
toward  the  open  door,  with  every  chance  that  it  would 
set  off  twelve  hundred  pounds  of  dynamite  there. 
Workmen  outside  shouted,  and  then  stared  in  horror. 
Not  a  man  in  the  mixing-house  moved.  All  four  kept 
their  places  around  the  vat,  held  tight  to  their  rakes 
and  hoes,  while  the  car,  just  missing  the  dynamite, 
hurled  its  mass  of  two  tons  through  the  back  wall  of 
the  building,  and  spent  its  force  against  a  tree-trunk. 
There  was  no  explosion,  and  nothing  happened,  which 
was  something  of  a  miracle;  but  what  impressed  me 
was  that  these  four  men  stood  still,  not  from  courage, 
but  because  they  were  frozen  with  fear! 


"A   SWIFT,    HEAVY   CAR   WAS   PLUNGING  TOWARD   THE   OPEN    DOOR. 


THE  DYNAMITE  WORKER  373 

While  there  is  danger  in  every  step  of  dynamite 
manufacture,  it  appears  that  the  center  of  peril  is  in 
the  nitrating-house,  where  the  fresh  glycerin  is  mixed 
with  nitric  acid,  or,  more  correctly,  is  nitrated  by  it. 
This  operation  takes  place  in  a  great  covered  vat  about 
which  are  many  pipes  and  stop-cocks.  A  man  stands 
here  like  an  engineer  at  the  throttle,  watching  his  ther- 
mometer and  letting  in  fresh  glycerin.  These  are  his 
two  duties,  and  upon  the  right  performance  of  them 
depends  the  safety  of  the  works.  Every  hour  he  must 
let  in  some  seven  hundred  pounds  of  glycerin  upon  the 
deadly  acid,  and  every  hour  he  must  draw  off  some 
fifteen  hundred  pounds  of  nitroglycerin  and  let  it  go 
splashing  away  in  a  yellowish  stream  down  the  long, 
uncovered  trough  that  leads  to  the  separating-house 
yonder.  From  this  separating-house  runs  another 
trough  to  the  freezing-house,  and  a  third  to  the  distant 
mixing-house.  These  three  troughs  inclose  an  oblong 
space,  at  the  corners  of  which  stand  the  nitrating- 
house,  the  separating-house,  and  the  freezing-house. 
In  each  one  of  these,  at  any  hour  of  the  day,  is 
a  wagon-load  of  pure  nitroglycerin,  while  in  the 
three  troughs  are  little  rivers  of  nitroglycerin  always 
flowing. 

The  arrangement  of  buildings  in  this  part  of  the 
works  makes  clearer  what  was  done  at  the  nitrating- 
house  by  a  certain  Joshua  Plumstead  in  the  recent  ex- 
plosion. Joshua  is  a  veteran  at  dynamite-making.  He 
has  worked  at  the  nitrating-vat  for  twenty-five  years, 
and  has  probably  made  more  nitroglycerin  than  any 
one  man  in  the  world.  He  has  been  through  all  the 
great  explosions ;  he  has  seen  many  men  killed ;  he  has 
stood  by  time  and  again  when  his  own  nitrating-vat 
has  taken  fire ;  and  yet  he  always  comes  through  safely. 
They  say  there  is  no  man  like  Joshua  for  nerve  and 


374  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

judgment  when  the  demons  of  gas  and  fire  begin  to 
play. 

This  explosion  took  place  at  the  freezing-house, 
which  is  the  one  place  in  all  the  works  where  dynamite 
is  never  expected  to  explode.  Yet  it  did  explode  now, 
with  a  smashing  of  air  and  a  horrible  grinding  under- 
foot that  stifled  all  things  in  men  but  a  mad  desire  to 
flee. 

Joshua  Plumstead  was  in  the  nitrating-house  alone. 
His  helper  had  fled.  The  roof  timbers  were  crashing 
down  about  him.  He  heard  the  hiss  of  fire  and  the 
shouts  of  workmen  running.  He  knew  that  a  second 
explosion  might  come  at  any  moment.  There  was 
danger  from  fire-brands  and  flying  masses  of  stone  and 
iron,  clanger  from  the  open  troughs,  danger  from  the 
near-by  houses.  A  shock,  a  spark  anywhere  here 
might  mean  the  end. 

Plumstead  kept  his  eyes  on  the  long  thermometer 
that  reached  up  from  the  furious  smoking  mass  of  oil 
and  acid.  The  mercury  had  crept  up  from  eighty-five 
to  ninety,  and  was  rising  still.  At  ninety-five  he  knew 
the  nitroglycerin  would  take  fire,  probably  explode,  and 
nothing  could  save  it.  The  vat  was  seething  with  a  full 
charge.  Ninety-one !  He  shut  off  the  inflow  of  glycerin. 
Ninety-two !  Something  might  be  wrong  with  the  coils 
of  ice-cold  water  that  chill  the  vat  down  to  safety.  He 
opened  the  cocks  full.  Crash !  came  a  beam  from  over- 
head, and  narrowly  missed  the  gearing  of  the  agitating- 
blades.  Were  they  to  stop  but  for  a  single  second,  the 
nitroglycerin  would  explode.  He  eased  the  bearings, 
turned  on  compressed  air,  watched  the  thermometer — 
and  waited. 

There  was  no  other  man  but  Plumstead  who  did 
wait  that  day;  there  was  none  but  he  whose  waiting 
could  avail  anything.  He  had  to  fight  it  out  alone 


"HE   KNEW  THAT  A   SECOND  EXPLOSION  MIGHT  COME  AT  ANY  MOMENT.' 


3/6  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

with  that  ton  of  nitroglycerin,  or  run  and  let  an  explo- 
sion come  far  worse  than  the  other.  He  fought  it  out ; 
he  waited,  and  he  won.  Gradually  the  thermometer 
dropped  to  eighty-five,  to  eighty,  and  the  danger  was 
passed. 

But — well,  even  the  superintendent  admitted  that 
Joshua  did  a  rather  fine  thing  here,  while  the  work- 
men themselves  and  the  people  of  Kenvil  t shake  their 
heads  solemnly  and  vow  that  he  saved  the  works. 


THE  LOCOMOTIVE  ENGINEER 
i 

HOW    IT    FEELS    TO    RIDE    AT    NIGHT    ON    A    LOCO- 
MOTIVE  GOING    NINETY    MILES   AN    HOUR 

IT  is  8.30  P.M.,  any  night  you  please,  and  for  miles 
through  the  yards  of  East  Chicago  lights  are  swing- 
ing, semaphore  arms  are  moving,  men  in  clicking 
signal-towers  are  juggling  with  electric  buttons  and 
pneumatic  levers,  target  lights  on  a  hundred  switches 
are  changing  from  red  to  green,  from  green  to  red; 
everything  is  clear,  everything  is  all  right,  the  Lake 
Shore  Mail  is  coming,  with  eighty  tons  of  letters  and 
papers  in  its  pouches.  Relays  of  engines  and  engineers 
have  brought  these  messages,  this  news  of  the  world, 
thus  far  on  their  journey.  Up  the  Hudson  they  have 
come,  and  across  the  Empire  State  and  along  the 
shores  of  Lake  Michigan,  nearly  a  thousand  miles  in 
twenty-four  hours,  which  is  not  so  bad,  although  the 
hottest,  maddest  rush  is  yet  to  come. 

It  is  a  fine  thing  to  know  the  men  who  drive  the 
engines  on  these  trains ;  just  to  see  them  is  something, 
and  to  make  them  talk  (if  you  can  do  it)  is  better  busi- 
ness than  interviewing  most  celebrities  you  have  heard 
about. 

To  this  end  I  set  out,  one  evening  early  in  January, 
for  the  great  round-house  of  the  Northwestern  road, 
that  lies  on  the  outskirts  of  Chicago.  A  strange  place, 
surely,  is  this  to  one  who  approaches  it  unprepared — 

377 


378  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

a  place  where  yellow  eyes  glare  out  of  deep  shadows, 
where  fire-dragons  rush  at  you  with  crunchings  and 
snortings,  where  the  air  hisses  and  roars.  It  might  be 
some  demon  menagerie,  there  in  the  darkness. 

To  this  place  of  fears  and  pitfalls  I  came  an  hour 
or  so  before  starting-time,  and  here  I  found  Dan 
White,  one  of  the  Northwestern  crack-a- jacks,  giving 
the  last  careful  touches  to  locomotive  908  before  the 
night's  hard  run.  In  almost  our  first  words  my  heart 
was  won  by  something  White  said.  I  had  mentioned 
Frank  Bullard  of  the  Burlington  road,  a  rival  by  all 
rights,  and  immediately  this  bluff,  broad-shouldered 
man  exclaimed :  "Ah,  he  's  a  fine  fellow,  Bullard  is, 
and  he  knows  how  to  run  an  engine."  White  would 
fight  Bullard  at  the  throttle  to  any  finish,  but  would 
speak  only  good  words  of  him. 

"Tell  me,"  said  I,  "about  the  great  run  you  made 
the  other  night."  From  a  dozen  lips  I  had  heard  of 
White's  tremendous  dash  from  Chicago  to  Clinton, 
Iowa. 

"Oh,  it  was  n't  much ;  we  had  to  make  the  time  up, 
and  we  did  it.  Did  n't  we,  Fred?" 

This  to  the  fireman,  who  nodded  in  assent,  but  said 
nothing. 

"You  made  a  record,  did  n't  you?" 

"Well,  we  went  one  hundred  and  thirty-eight  miles 
in  one  hundred  and  forty-three  minutes ;  that  included 
three  stops  and  two  slow-downs.  I  don't  know  as 
anybody  has  beat  that — much." 

By  dint  of  questioning,  I  drew  from  this  modest  man 
some  details  of  his  achievement.  The  curve-bent 
stretch  of  seventeen  miles  between  Franklin  Grove 
and  Nelson  they  did  in  fourteen  minutes,  and  a  part  of 
this,  beyond  Nachusa,  they  took  at  an  eighty-mile  pace. 
They  covered  five  miles  between  Clarence  and  Stan- 


A    PLACE   WHKRE   YELLOW   EYES   GLARE   OUT   OF   DEEP   SHADOWS. 


3^0  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

wood  in  three  minutes  and  a  half,  and  they  made  two 
miles  beyond  Dennison  at  over  a  hundred  miles  an 
hour.  As  the  mail  rushed  west,  word  was  flashed 
ahead,  and  crowds  gathered  at  the  stations  to  cheer 
and  marvel. 

''There  must  have  been  five  hundred  people  on  the 
platform  at  Dixon,"  said  White,  telling  the  story,  "and 
they  looked  to  me  like  a  swarm  of  ants,  just  a  black, 
wriggling  mass,  and  then  they  were  gone.  We  came 
on  to  a  bridge  there  after  a  big  reverse  curve  with  a 
down  grade,  and  I  guess  no  one  will  ever  know  how 
fast  we  were  going,  as  we  slammed  her  around  one 
way  and  then  slammed  her  around  the  other  way.  It 
was  every  bit  of  ninety  miles  an  hour.  You  got  all 
you  wanted,  did  n't  you,  Fred?" 

The  fireman  looked  up,  torch  in  hand,  and  remarked, 
in  a  dry  monotone :  "Goin'  through  Dixon  I  said  my 
prayers  and  hung  on,  stretched  out  flat.  That  's  what 
I  done." 

"Fred  and  I,"  continued  White,  "both  got  letters 
about  the  run  from  the  superintendent.  Here  's  mine, 
if  you  'd  like  to  read  it." 

The  pleasure  of  these  two  blackened  men  over  this 
graciousness  of  the  superintendent  was  a  thing  to  see. 
For  such  a  bit  of  paper,  crumpled  and  smeared  with 
oil,  I  believe  they  would  have  taken  the  Mississippi  at 
a  jump,  engine,  train,  and  all.  Superintendent's  or- 
ders, superintendent's  praise — there  is  the  beginning 
and  end  of  all  things  for  them. 

My  first  long  ride  on  one  of  these  splendid  locomo- 
tives was  with  the  Burlington  night  mail  (no  passen- 
gers), 590  pulling  her  and  Frank  Bullard  at  the  throt- 
tle. It  is  said  that  the  Baldwin  Locomotive  Works 
never  turned  out  a  faster  engine  than  this  590.  The 
man  must  be  a  giant  wrhose  head  will  top  her  drivers, 


THE  LOCOMOTIVE  ENGINEER        381 

and,  for  all  her  seventy  tons,  there  is  speed  in  every 
line  of  her.  She  is  a  young  engine,  too — only  four 
years  old — and  Bullard  swears  he  will  back  her  in  the 
matter  of  getting  over  rails  to  do  anything  that  steel 
and  steam  can  do.  "She  's  willing  and  gentle,  sir,  and 
easy  running.  You  '11  see  in  a  minute." 

These  words  from  Bullard,  first-class  engine-driver 
of  the  C.  B.  &  Q.,  a  long,  loosely  jointed  man,  with 
the  eye  and  build  of  a  scout.  As  he  spoke  they 
were  coupling  us  to  the  mail-cars,  in  preparation  for 
the  start.  In  overalls  and  sweater  I  had  come,  with 
type-written  authority  to  make  the  run  that  night.  This 
was  in  the  first  week  in  January,  the  second  time  Bul- 
lard had  drawn  the  throttle  for  Burlington  on  the  new 
fast  schedule.  Burlington  lay  off  there  in  Iowa,  on 
the  Mississippi,  with  all  the  night  and  all  the  State  of 
Illinois  between  us. 

Now  the  train  stands  ready — three  mail-cars  and  the 
engine,  not  a  stick  besides.  No  Pullman  comforts 
here,  no  bunks  for  sleeping,  no  man  aboard  who  has 
the  right  to  sleep.  Everything  is  hustle  and  business. 
Already  the  mail  clerks  are  swarming  at  the  pouches, 
like  printers  on  a  rush  edition.  See  those  last  bags 
swung  in  through  the  panel  doors !  Not  even  the 
president  of  the  road  may  ride  here  without  a  permit 
from  the  government. 

Bullard  takes  up  a  red,  smoking  torch  and  looks 
590  over.  He  fills  her  cups,  and  prods  a  two-foot  oiler 
into  her  rod's  and  bearings.  Dan  Cleary,  the  fireman, 
looks  out  of  his  window  on  the  left  and  chews  com- 
placently. Down  the  track  beside  him  locomotive  1 309 
backs  up,  a  first-class  engine  she,  but  590  bulks  over 
her  as  the  king  of  a  herd  might  over  some  good,  ordi- 
nary working  elephant.  As  she  stands  here  now,  purr- 
ing through  her  black  iron  throat,  590  measures  six- 


382  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

teen  feet  three  inches  from  rails  to  stack-top.  Both 
engines  blow  out  steam,  that  rolls  up  in  silver  clouds 
to  the  electric  lights. 

Bullard  climbs  to  his  place  at  the  right,  and  a  hiss 
of  air  tells  that  he  is  testing  the  brakes.  Under  each 
car  sixteen  iron  shoes  close  against  sixteen  wheels, 
and  stay  there.  Down  the  length  of  the  train  goes  the 
repair  man  with  his  kit,  and  makes  sure  that  every 
contact  is  right,  then  pulls  a  rope  four  times  at  the  rear, 
whereupon  four  hissing  signals  answer  in  the  cab. 
Bullard  shuts  off  the  air. 

"It  's  all  there  is  to  stop  her  with,"  says  he,  "so  we 
take  no  chances  with  it.  She  's  got  high-speed  brakes 
on  her,  590  has — one  hundred  and  ten  pounds  to  the 
inch.  Twenty- four,  Dan,"  he  adds,  and  snaps  his 
watch.  "We  start  at  thirty." 

Dan  chews  on.  "Bad  wind  to-night,"  he  says; 
"reg'lar  gale." 

Bullard  nods.  "I  know  it;  we  're  fifteen  minutes 
late,  too." 

"Make  Burlington  on  time?" 

"Got  to ;  you  hit  it  up,  and  I  '11  skin  her.  Twenty- 
six,  Dan." 

Four  minutes  to  wait.  Two  station  officials  come 
up  with  polite  inquiries.  The  thermometer  is  falling, 
they  say,  and  we  shall  have  it  bitter  cold  over  the  plains. 
They  reach  up  with  cordial  hand-shakes.  I  pull  my 
cap  down,  and  take  my  stand  behind  Bullard.  Our 
side  of  the  cab  is  quite  cut  off  from  the  fireman's  side 
by  a  swelling  girth  of  boiler,  which  leaves  an  alley- 
way at  right  and  left  wide  enough  for  a  man's  body  and 
no  wider.  Bullard  and  I  are  in  the  right-hand  alley- 
way, Bullard's  back  and  black  cap  just  before  me. 
Dan,  with  his  shovel,  is  out  on  a  shaky  steel  shelf  be- 
hind, that  bridges  the  space  between  engine  and  ten- 


THE  LOCOMOTIVE  ENGINEER        383 

der.  That  is  where  he  works,  poor  lad !  We  are 
breathing  coal-dust  and  torch-smoke  and  warm  oil. 

"F-s-s-s-s-s !"  comes  the  signal,  and  instantly  we  are 
moving.  Lights  flash  about  us  everywhere — green 
lights,  white  lights,  red  lights,  a  phantasmagoria  of 
drug-store  bottles.  The  tracks  shine  yellow  far  ahead. 
A  steady  pounding  and  jarring  begins,  and  grows  like 
the  roar  of  battle.  Our  cab  heaves  with  the  tugging  of 
a  captive  balloon.  Our  speed  increases  amazingly.  We 
seem  constantly  on  the  point  of  running  straight 
through  blocks  of  houses,  and  escape  only  by  sudden 
and  disconcerting  swayings  around  curves  that  all  lead, 
one  will  vow,  straight  into  black  chasms  under  the 
dazzle.  Whoever  rides  here  for  the  first  time  feels 
that  he  is  ticketed  for  sure  destruction,  understands  that 
this  plunging  engine  must  necessarily  go  off  the  rails 
in  two  or  three  minutes,  say  five  at  the  latest;  for 
what  guidance,  he  reasons,  can  any  man  get  from  a 
million  crazy  lights,  and  who  that  is  human  can  avoid 
a  snarl  in  such  a  tangle  of  bumping  switches?  I 
am  free  to  confess,  for  my  own  part,  that  I  found 
the  first  half  hour  of  my  ride  on  590  absolutely  ter- 
rifying. 

Thus,  at  break-neck  speed,  we  come  out  of  Chicago, 
all  slow-going  city  ordinances  to  the  contrary  notwith- 
standing. We  are  chasing  a  transcontinental  record 
schedule,  and  have  fifteen  minutes  to  make  up.  I 
breathe  more  freely  as  we  get  into  open  country.  We 
are  going  like  the  wind,  but  the  track  is  straighter,  and 
the  darkness  comfortable.  I  begin  to  notice  things 
with  better  understanding.  As  the  lurches  come,  I 
brace  myself  against  the  boiler  side  without  fear  of 
burning ;  that  is  something  learned.  I  find  out  later  that 
I  owe  this  protection  to  a  two-inch  layer  of  asbestos. 
I  catch  a  faint  sound  of  the  engine  bell,  and  discover, 


384  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

to  my  surprise,  that  it  has  been  ringing  from  the  start — 
indeed,  it  rings,  without  ceasing,  all  the  way  to  Bur- 
lington, the  rope  pulled  by  a  steam  jerking  contrivance, 
but  the  roar  of  the  engine  drowns  it. 

Deep  shadows  inwrap  the  cab,  all  the  deeper  for  the 
glare  that  flashes  through  them  every  minute  or  two  as 
Dan,  back  there  on  his  iron  shelf,  stokes  coal  in  at  the 
red-hot  door.  Two  faint  lights  burn  for  the  gages — 
a  jumping  water  column  in  front,  a  pair  of  wavering 
needles  on  the  boiler.  These  Bullard  watches  coolly, 
and  from  time  to  time  reaches  back  past  me  to  turn  the 
injector-cock,  whereupon  steam  hisses  by  my  head.  For 
the  most  part  he  is  quite  still,  like  an  Indian  pilot,  head 
forward  at  the  lookout  window,  right  hand  down  by 
the  air-brake  valve,  left  hand  across  the  throttle  lever, 
with  only  a  second's  jump  to  the  reversing  lever  that 
rises  up  from  the  floor  straight  before  him.  As  we 
race  into  towns  and  roar  through  them,  he  sounds  the 
chime  whistle,  making  its  deep  voice  challenge  the  dark- 
ness. At  curves  he  eases  her  with  the  brakes.  And 
for  grades  and  level  stretches  and  bridges  he  notches 
the  throttle  up  or  down  as  the  need  is.  Watch  his  big, 
strong  grip  on  the  polished  handles!  Think  of  the 
hours  he  spends  here  all  alone,  this  man  who  holds 
life  and  death  in  his  quick,  sure  judgment! 

Now  he  catches  the  window-frame  and  slides  it  open. 
A  blast  sweeps  in  like  an  arctic  hurricane.  Bullard 
leans  out  into  the  night  and  seems  to  listen.  "Try  it," 
he  cries,  but  his  voice  is  faint.  I  put  my  head  out, 
and  come  into  a  rush  of  air  billows  that  strangle  like 
breakers. 

"Greggs — Hill — three — miles — long.  Let — her — go 
— soon."  He  closes  the  window.  And  now,  as  we 
clear  the  grade,  begins  a  burst  of  speed  that  makes 
the  rest  of  small  account.  Faster  and  faster  we  go, 


THE  LOCOMOTIVE  ENGINEER        385 

until  the  very  iron  seems  alive  and  straining  under- 
neath us.  I  am  tossed  about  in  hard  pitches.  The 
glow  of  the  furnace  lights  up  continuously.  There  is 
no  sense  of  fear  any  longer.  It  is  too  splendid,  what 


AT  THE   THROTTLE. 


we  are  doing.  Of  course  it  means  instant  death  if  any- 
thing breaks.  Let  the  massive  side  rod  that  holds  the 
two  drivers  snap,  and  a  half -ton  knife  sweeping  seventy 
miles  an  hour  will  slice  off  our  cab  and  us  with  it  like 
a  cut  of  cheese.  Did  not  an  engineer  go  to  his  death 
that  way  only  last  week  on  the  Union  Pacific  run? 
After  all,  why  not  this  death  as  well  as  any  other? 
25 


386  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

Have  we  not  valves  and  tubes  in  our  bodies  that  may 
snap  at  any  moment! 

-How— fast?"  I  call  out. 

"Eighty — miles — an — hour,"  says  Bullard,  close  to 
my  ear,  and  a  moment  later  pulls  the  rope  for  a  grade 
crossing.  "Ooooo — ooooo — oo — oo,"  answers  the 
deep  iron  voice,  two  long  and  two  short  calls,  as  the 
code  requires.  "Year — ago — killed — two — men — here," 
he  shouts  as  we  whiz  over  the  road.  "Struck — buggy 
—threw — men — sixty — feet."  I  wonder  how  far  we 
would  throw  them  now. 

In  the  two  hundred  and  six  miles'  run  to  the  Missis- 
sippi we  stop  only  twice — for  water,  at  Mendota  and 
at  Galesburg — nine  minutes  wasted  for  the  two,  and 
the  gale  blowing  harder.  Our  schedule  makes  allow- 
ance for  no  stops ;  every  moment  from  our  actual  going 
is  so  much  "dead  time"  that  must  be  fought  for,  sec- 
ond by  second,  and  made  up.  Drive  her  as  he  will, 
with  all  the  cunning  of  his  hand,  Bullard  can  score  but 
small  gains  against  the  wind.  And  some  of  these  he 
loses.  At  Mendota  we  have  made  up  seven  minutes, 
but  we  pull  out  thirteen  minutes  late.  At  Princeton 
we  are  fifteen  minutes  late,  at  Galva  fourteen  minutes, 
at  Galesburg  eight  minutes,  but  we  pull  out  twelve  min- 
utes late.  Then  we  make  the  last  forty-three  miles, 
including  bridges,  towns,  grades,  and  curves,  in  forty- 
four  minutes,  and  draw  into  Burlington  at  1.22  A.M. — 
on  time  to  the  dot.  This  because  Bullard  had  sworn 
to  do  it ;  also  because  the  road  beyond  Galesburg  runs 
west  instead  of  southwest,  and  it  is  easier  for  a  train 
to  bore  straight  through  a  gale,  head  on,  than  to  take  it 
from  the  quarter. 

We  took  the  big,  steady  curve  at  Princeton,  a  down- 
grade helping  us,  at  a  hundred  miles  an  hour — so  Bul- 
lard declares  and  what  he  says  about  engine-driving  I 


THE  LOCOMOTIVE  ENGINEER        387 

believe.  Indeed,  these  great  bursts  can  be  measured 
only  by  the  subtle  senses  of  an  expert,  since  no  register- 
ing instrument  has  been  devised  to  make  reliable  record. 
Across  the  twin  high  bridges  that  span  the  Bureau 
creeks  we  shot  with  a  rush  that  left  the  reverberations 
far  back  in  the  night  like  two  short  barks.  And  just 
as  we  rounded  a  curve  before  these  bridges  I  saw  a 
black  face  peering  down  from  the  boiler-top,  while  a 
voice  called  out:  "Wahr — wahr — wahr — wahr!"  To 
which  startling  apparition  Bullard,  undisturbed,  re- 
plied :  "Wahr — wahr — wahr — wahr !"  Then  the  head 
disappeared.  Dan,  from  his  side,  was  telling  Bul- 
lard that  he  had  seen  the  safety-light  for  the  bridges, 
and  Bullard  was  answering  something  about  hitting  it 
vtp  harder.  How  these  men  understand  each  other  in 
such  tumult  is  a  mystery  to  one  with  ordinary  hearing, 
but  somehow  they  manage  it. 

Half  way  between  Kewanee  and  Galva  a  white  light 
came  suddenly  into  view  far  ahead.  I  knew  it  for  the 
headlight  of  a  locomotive  coming  toward  us  on  the 
parallel  track.  Already  we  had  met  two  or  three 
trains,  and  swept  past  them  with  a  smashing  of  sound 
and  air.  But  this  headlight  seemed  different  from  the 
others,  paler  in  its  luster,  not  so  steady  in  its  glare. 
The  ordinary  locomotive  comes  at  you  with  a  calm, 
staring  yellow  eye  that  grows  until  it  gets  to  be  a  huge 
full  moon.  But  it  comes  gradually,  without  much 
jumping  or  wavering.  This  light  danced  and  flashed 
like  a  great  white  diamond.  I  watched  it  with  a  cer- 
tain fascination,  and  as  it  came  nearer  and  nearer,  real- 
ized that  here  was  a  train  of  different  kind  from  the 
others,  coming  down  on  us  at  terrific  speed.  And  Bul- 
lard shouted  :  "Number — 8 — with — the — mail."  Then 
added,  as  the  train  passed  like  the  gleam  of  a  knife: 
"She  's — going — too." 


II 


WE    PICK    UP    SOME    ENGINE    LORE    AND    HEAR 
ABOUT    THE    DEATH    OF    GIDDINGS 

THE  next  day,  with  comfortable  rocking-chairs  to 
sit  in  and  a  row  of  hotel  windows  before  us,  Bui- 
lard  and  I  found  time  for  engine  chat,  and  I  was  well 
content.  First  I  asked  him  about  putting  his  head 
out  of  the  cab  window  there  at  Greggs  Hill  and  else- 
where. "Was  it  to  see  better?"  said  I. 

"No,"  said  Bullard;  "it  was  to  hear  better  and  to 
smell  better." 

"Hear  what?     Smell  what?" 

"Hear  the  noises  of  the  engine.  If  any  little  thing 
was  working  wrong,  I  'd  hear  it.  If  there  was  any 
wear  on  the  bearings,  I  'd  hear  it.  Why,  if  a  mouse 
squeaked  somewhere  inside  of  590,  I  guess  I  'd  hear  it." 

Then  he  went  on  to  explain  that  the  ordinary  roar  of 
the  engine,  which  drowned  everything  for  me,  was  to 
him  an  unimportant  background  of  sound  that  made 
little  impression,  and  left  his  ears  free  for  other  sounds. 

"I  get  so  accustomed  to  listening  to  an  engine,"  he 
added,  "that  often  up  home,  talking  with  my  wife  and 
child,  I  find  myself  trying  to  hear  sounds  from  the 
round-house.  And,  after  a  run,  I  talk  to  people  as  if 
they  were  deaf." 

"You  spoke  about  smelling  better." 

"That  's  right.  I  can  smell  a  hot  box  in  a  minute, 
or  oil  burning.  All  engineers  can.  Why,  there 
was — " 

388 


THE  LOCOMOTIVE  ENGINEER        389 

This  led  to  the  story  of  poor  Giddings,  killed  on  590 
three  years  before  through  this  very  necessity  of  put- 
ting his  head  out  of  the  cab  window.  Giddings  had 
Bullard's  place,  and  was  one  of  the  most  trusted  men 
in  the  Burlington  employ. 

"You  saw  last  night,"  said  Bullard,  "how  the  boiler 
in  590  shuts  off  the  engineer  from  the  fireman.  And 
prob'ly  you  noticed  those  posts  along  the  road  that 
hold  the  tell-tale  strings.  They  're  to  warn  crews  on 
freight-car  tops  when  it  is  time  to  duck  for  bridges. 
Well,  Giddings  was  coming  along  one  night  bet\veen 
Biggsville  and  Gladstone — that  's  about  ten  miles  be- 
fore you  get  to  the  Mississippi.  He  was  driving  her 
fast  to  make  up  time,  sixty  miles  an  hour  easy,  and  he 
put  his  head  out  to  hear  and  to  smell,  the  way  I  've 
explained  it. 

"There  must  have  been  a  post  set  too  near  the  track, 
and  anyway  59o's  cab  is  extra  wide,  so  the  first  thing 
he  knew — and  he  did  n't  know  that — his  head  was 
knocked  clean  off,  or  as  good  as  that,  and  there  was 
590,  her  throttle  wide  open,  tearing  along,  with  a  fire- 
man stoking  for  all  he  was  worth  and  a  dead  engineer 
hanging  out  the  window. 

"So  they  ran  for  eight  miles,  and  Billy  Maine — he 
was  firing — never  suspected  anything  wrong — for  of 
course  he  could  n't  see — until  they  struck  the  Missis- 
sippi bridge  at  full  speed.  You  remember  crossing 
the  bridge  just  before  we  pulled  in  here.  It  's  twenty- 
two  hundred  feet  long,  and  we  always  give  a  long 
whistle  before  we  get  to  it,  and  then  slow  down. 
That  's  the  law,"  he  added,  smiling,  "and,  besides, 
there  's  a  draw  to  look  out  for.  When  he  heard  no 
whistle  this  time,  Billy  Maine  jumped  around  quick  to 
where  Giddings  was,  and  then  he  saw  he  had  a  corpse 
for  a  partner." 


"THEV  STRUCK  THE  MISSISSIPPI  BRIDGE  AT  FULL  SPEED." 


THE  LOCOMOTIVE  ENGINEER        391 

Another  question  I  asked  was  about  stopping  a  train 
at  great  speed  for  an  emergency — how  quickly  could 
they  do  it?  "I  Ve  stopped,"  said  Bullard,  "in  nine 
hundred  and  fifty  feet,  pulling  five  cars  that  were  mak- 
ing about  sixty-two  miles  an  hour.  I  don't  know  what 
I  could  do  with  this  new  train,  only  three  cars,  and 
going  eighty  or  ninety  miles  an  hour.  That  's  a  hard 
proposition." 

"Would  you  reverse  her?" 

"No,  sir.  All  engineers  who  know  their  business 
will  agree  on  that.  I  'd  shut  the  throttle  off,  and  put 
the  brakes  on  full.  But  I  would  n't  reverse  her.  If 
I  did,  the  wheels  would  lock  in  a  second,  and  the  whole 
business  would  skate  ahead  as  if  you  'd  put  her  on  ice." 

Then  we  talked  about  the  nerve  it  takes  to  run  an 
engine,  and  how  a  man  can  lose  his  nerve.  It  's  like 
a  lion-tamer  who  wakes  up  some  morning  and  finds 
that  he  's  afraid.  Then  his  time  has  come  to  quit 
taming  lions,  for  the  beasts  will  know  it  if  he  does  n't, 
and  kill  him.  There  are  men  who  can  stand  these 
high-speed  runs  for  ten  years,  but  few  go  beyond  that 
term,  or  past  the  forty-five-year  point.  Slow-going 
passenger  trains  will  do  for  them  after  that.  Others 
break  down  after  five  years.  Many  engineers — skilled 
men,  too — would  rather  throw  up  their  jobs  than  take 
the  run  Bullard  makes.  Not  that  they  feel  the  danger 
to  be  so  much  greater  in  pushing  the  speed  up  to  sev- 
enty, eighty,  or  ninety  miles  an  hour,  but  they  simply 
cannot  stand  the  strain  of  doing  the  thing. 

"This  doubling  up  is  what  breaks  my  heart,"  said 
Bullard.  "Since  they  Ve  put  on  their  new  schedule 
I  have  to  divide  590  with  another  fellow.  John  Kelly 
takes  her  on  the  fast  run  East  while  I  wait  here  and 
rest.  And  so  I  Ve  lost  my  sweetheart,  and  I  don't  feel 
near  as  much  interest  in  her  as  I  did.  You  see,  she  ain't 


392  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

mine  any  more.  And,  between  you  and  me,"  he  added, 
confidentially,  "I  don't  think  590  likes  it  much  herself ; 
you  see,  engines  are  a  good  deal  like  girls,  after  all." 

The  next  night,  in  workman's  garb  again,  I  made 
my  way  to  a  gloomy  round-house,  ready  for  the  run 
to  Omaha.  I  was  to  ride  the  second  relay,  as  far  as 
Creston,  on  locomotive  1201,  with  Jake  Myers  in  the 
cab,  so  I  had  been  informed.  Being  hours  ahead  of 
time,  I  saw  something  of  round-house  life. 

First,  I  followed  a  gaunt,  black-faced  Swede,  with 
stubby  beard,  through  his  duties  as  locomotive  hostler ; 
saw  him  take  the  tired  engines  in  hand,  as  they  came 
in  one  after  another  from  hard  runs,  and  care  for  them 
as  stable  hostlers  care  for  horses.  There  were  fires 
to  be  dropped  in  the  clinker-pit,  coal  and  wood  to  be 
loaded  in  from  the  chutes,  water-tanks  to  be  filled, 
sand-boxes  looked  after,  and,  finally,  there  was  the 
hitching  fast  of  the  weary  monsters  in  empty  stalls, 
whither  they  were  led  from  the  lumbering  turn-table 
with  the  last  head  of  steam  left  over  dead  fire-boxes. 
And  now  spoke  the  Swede : 

"Dem  big  passenger-engines  can  werry  easy  climb 
over  dem  blocks  and  go  through  the  brick  wall,"  and 
he  pointed  to  a  great  semicircle  of  cold  engine-noses, 
ranged  along  hot  two  feet  from  the  round-house  wall. 

Later  on,  in  the  dimly  lighted  locker-room,  I  lis- 
tened to  round-house  men  swapping  yarns  about  acci- 
dents, and  to  threats  of  a  fireman  touching  a  certain 
yardmaster  set  apart  by  general  consent  for  a  licking. 

Finally  an  Irishman  came  in,  James  Byron,  and  for 
all  his  good-natured  face  he  seemed  in  ill  humor.  It 
turned  out  that  he  had  just  received  a  hurry  .order  to 
take  1 20 1  out  in  Myers's  place. 

"Jake  is  sick,"  he  said,  "and  they  've  sent  for  me. 
But  I  'm  sick,  too.  Was  in  bed  with  the  grip.  Just 


THE  LOCOMOTIVE  ENGINEER        393 

took  ten  grains  of  quinine.  Say,  I  ain't  any  more  fit 
to  rim  an  engine  than  I  am  to  run  a  Sunday-school." 

Then  he  began  pulling  on  his  overalls,  while  the 
others  laughed  at  him,  told  him  he  was  "scared"  of  the 
fast  run,  and  said  good-by  with  mock  seriousness. 

But  Byron  showed  himself  a  good  soldier,  and  soon 
was  working  over  1201  with  a  will,  inspecting  every 
inch  of  her,  torch  in  hand,  and  he  assured  me  he  would 
take  her  through  all  right,  grip  or  no  grip. 

And  take  her  through  he  did.  At  1.16  A.M.  my  old 
friend,  locomotive  590,  brought  the  flier  up  from  Chi- 
cago, six  minutes  ahead  of  the  schedule.  Kelly  had 
done  himself  proud  this  time.  And  six  minutes  later, 
on  time  to  the  minute,  we  drew  out  behind  1201,  with 
Byron  handling  her  and  seventy  tons  of  mail  following 
after. 

Our  fireman  was  named  Bellamy.  He  wore  isin- 
glass goggles  against  the  heat,  and,  in  his  way,  he 
was  a  humorist,  as  I  discovered  presently,  when  he 
came  close  to  me  (we  were  running  at  a  sixty-mile 
gait),  and,  grinning  like  a  Dante  demon,  remarked 
slowly :  "Say — if — we — go — in — the — ditch — will — 
you — come — along  ?" 

The  first  feature  of  this  run  was  some  trouble  with 
a  feed-pipe  from  the  tank,  which  brought  us  to  a  sudden 
standstill  in  the  open  night  with  a  great  hissing  of 
steam. 

"What  is  it?"  I  asked  of  Bellamy,  while  Byron, 
grumbling  maledictions,  hammered  under  the  truck. 

"Check-valve  stuck;  water  can't  get  into  the  boiler." 

"How  did  he  know  it?" 

"Water-gage." 

"What  if  he  had  n't  noticed  it?" 

Bellamy  smiled  in  half  contempt.  "Say,  if  he  had  n't 
noticed  it  for  fifteen  minutes,  we  'd  have  been  sailing 


394  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

over  them  trees  about  this  time — in  pieces.     She  'd 
have  bust  her  boiler/' 

Five  minutes  lost  here,  and  we  were  off  again,  run- 
ning presently  into  a  thick  fog,  then  into  rain,  and, 
finally,  into  a  snow-storm.  Never  shall  I  forget  the 
illusion,  due  to  our  great  speed,  that  the  flakes  were 
rushing  at  us  horizontally,  shooting  upward  in  sharp 
curves  over  the  engine's  headlight.  And,  as  we  swept 
on,  the  shadow  of  1201  advanced  beside  us  on  the 
stretch  of  white  snow  as  smoothly  and  silently  as  the 
tail  of  an  eclipse.  The  engine  itself  was  a  noisy,  hur- 
rying affair,  but  the  engine's  shadow  was  as  calm  and 
quiet  as  a  cloud.  And  I  recall  that  the  swiftness  of 
our  rush  this  night  caused  in  me  neither  fear  nor  any 
particular  emotion,  although  this  was  practically  the 
same  experience  that  had  stirred  me  so  the  night  before 
on  590.  And  I  realized  that  riding  on  a  swift  locomo- 
tive may  become  a  matter  of  course  like  other  strange 
things. 


Ill 


SOME    MEMORIES    OF    THE    GREAT    RECORD-BREAK- 
ING   RUN    FROM    CHICAGO    TO    BUFFALO 


is  a  place  in  New  York  —  the  very  last 
JL  place  one  would  think  of  —  where  stories  without 
end  may  be  heard  about  locomotives  and  the  men  who 
drive  them  ;  it  is  not  a  place  of  grime  and  steam,  but  a 
quiet  and  luxurious  club  spreading  over  the  top  floor 
of  a  very  tall  building  on  Forty-second  Street,  and 
here  every  day  at  luncheon-time  railroad  officials 
gather:  superintendents,  managers,  and  various  heads 
of  departments,  men  who  may  have  grown  prosperous 
and  portly,  but  are  always  proud  to  talk  about  the  boys 
at  the  throttle,  and  recall  experiences  of  their  own  in 
certain  exciting  runs. 

In  the  wide  hall  near  the  entrance  of  this  Transpor- 
tation Club  is  a  driving-wheel,  green  painted,  from 
the  De  Witt  Clinton,  the  first  locomotive  that  drew  a 
passenger  train  in  the  State  of  New  York.  It  is 
scarcely  larger  than  a  wagon-wheel,  though  made  of 
iron,  and  an  inscription  sets  forth  how  it  made  the 
historic  run  from  Albany  to  Schenectady  on  August  9, 
1831.  The  walls  show  many  pictures,  famous  locomo- 
tives, scenes  of  accidents,  and  there  are  thrilling  mem- 
ories here  in  abundance  if  one  have  with  him  some 
veteran  of  the  road  to  recall  them. 

"It  's  not  always  the  most  serious  accidents  that 
frighten  a  man  most,"  remarked  a  high  official  on  the 
New  York  Central,  one  day,  while  the  rest  of  us  lis- 

395 


396  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

tened.  "One  of  the  worst  scares  I  ever  had  was  on  a 
freight  train  when  there  really  was  n't  anything  to  be 
scared  about.  We  had  just  pulled  out  of  Ottumwa, 
Iowa,  one  dark  night,  with  a  caboose  full  of  passengers, 
when  rump — ump — bang — rip !  You  never  heard  such 
a  racket.  First  one  end  of  the  car  was  lifted  up  off  the 
rails  and  slammed  down  again,  and  then  the  other  end 
was  treated  the  same  way;  up  and  down  we  went, 
bump,  bump,  bump !  and  smash  went  the  window,  and 
out  went  the  lights.  Now,  what  do  you  suppose  it 
was?" 

"Hog  under  the  wheels?"  suggested  one  of  the  group. 

"More  likely  a  mule,"  said  another.  "There  's  no- 
thing so  tough  as  the  hind  leg  of  a  mule.  Is  n't  a 
car-wheel  made  that  '11  cut  through  one." 

"It  was  n't  a  mule  or  a  hog,  and  it  was  n't  anything 
alive,  but  it  got  us  into  a  panic,  all  right.  We  waved  a 
lantern  like  fury  to  the  engineer  ahead,  but  he  did  n't 
see  it  for  a  good  while,  and  we  just  bumped  along,  ex- 
pecting every  second  to  be  split  into  kindling-wood. 
We  stopped  at  last,  and  found  it  was  a  beer-keg;  yes, 
sir,  an  empty  beer-keg  that  had  got  caught  under  the 
caboose  between  the  rear  axle  and  the  bolster  of  the 
truck,  and  had  rolled  along  over  the  ties  with  the  car 
balanced  on  it  like  a  man  riding  a  rail.  Was  n't 
broken,  either ;  no,  sir,  not  a  bit ;  and  we  had  to  chisel 
through  every  blamed  hoop  before  we  could  get  it 
out.  Talk  about  making  things  strong — that  beer-keg 
was  a  wonder!" 

"I  had  a  more  exciting  experience  than  that,"  said 
another  official — he  was  in  the  freight-handling  depart- 
ment. "It  was  a  long  time  ago — yes,  back  in  '63.  I 
remember  getting  out  at  a  station  near  Cincinnati  to 
look  at  some  soldiers,  and  before  I  knew  it  the  train 
started.  I  was  up  by  the  engine,  and  as  the  drivers 


THE  LOCOMOTIVE  ENGINEER        397 

began  to  turn  I  jumped  on  the  cow-catcher.  You  see, 
I  had  often  ridden  there,  being  a  railroad-man,  and 
the  engineer  knew  me. 

"Everything  went  well  for  a  few  miles,  and  I  sat 
on  the  bumper  enjoying  the  rush  of  air,  for  it  was  a 


AS  THE  DRIVERS  BEGAN  TO  TURN  I  JUMPED  ON  THE  COW-CATCHER." 

hot  summer's  day;  but  presently,  as  we  swung  around 
a  curve,  the  engine  gave  a  fearful  shriek,  and  just 
ahead  I  saw  a  farmer's  wagon  crossing  the  track. 
There  were  two  old  men  on  the  seat  and  an  old  white 
horse  in  the  shafts.  The  men  were  so  busy  talking 
they  never  heard  the  whistle,  or  perhaps  they  were 
deaf.  Anyhow,  wre  were  right  on  them  before  they 
looked  up,  and  then  they  were  too  dazed  to  do  any- 
thing. One  of  them  made  a  grab  for  the  reins,  but  I 
saw  it  was  too  late,  and  I  drew  my  legs  up  off  the 
bumper  and  leaned  back  against  the  end  of  the  boiler 
(I  must  have  made  a  picture  as  I  crouched  there)  ;  and 
the  next  second — " 


398  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

"Well?"  said  somebody. 

"Well — I  guess  you  would  n't  care  to  hear  how 
things  looked  the  next  second.  We  struck  the  white 
horse  just  back  of  his  forelegs,  and  I  had  him  on  my 
lap  for  a  hundred  yards  or  so.  No,  it  did  n't  hurt  me, 
but  it  was  n't  pleasant.  The  two  old  men?  I  don't 
think  they  felt  anything,  it  was  so  sudden ;  they  just — 
passed  out.  No,  I  did  n't  see  them ;  but  I  can  tell  you 
this,  I  Ve  never  ridden  on  the  cow-catcher  of  a  locomo- 
tive since  that  day." 

There  followed  some  talk  about  fast  runs,  and  all 
agreed  that  for  out-and-out  excitement  there  is  nothing 
in  railroading  to  equal  a  man's  sensations  in  one  of 
those  mad  bursts  of  speed  that  are  ventured  upon  now 
and  then  by  locomotives  in  record-breaking  trials.  The 
heart  never  pounds  with  apprehension  in  a  real  acci- 
dent as  it  does  through  imminent  fear  of  an  accident. 
And  so  great  is  the  nerve-strain  and  brain-strain  upon 
the  men  who  drive  our  ordinary  fliers,  that  three  hours 
at  a  stretch  is  as  much  as  the  stanchest  engineer  can 
endure  running  at  fifty  or  sixty  miles  an  hour. 

"So  you  see,"  said  one  of  the  officials,  "the  problem 
of  higher  speeds  than  we  have  at  present  involves  more 
than  boiler  power  and  strength  of  machinery  and  the 
swiftness  of  turning  wheels — it  involves  the  question 
of  human  endurance.  We  can  build  engines  that 
will  run  a  hundred  and  fifty  miles  an  hour,  but  where 
shall  we  find  the  men  to  drive  them  ?  Already  we  have 
nearly  reached  the  limit  of  what  eyes  and  nerves  can 
endure.  I  guess  we  '11  have  to  find  a  new  race  of  men 
to  handle  these  'locomotives  of  the  future'  that  they 
talk  so  much  about." 

He  went  on  to  consider  the  chance  of  color-blindness 
in  an  engineer,  and  told  how  the  men's  eyes  are  regu- 
larly tested  by  experts,  who  put  before  them  skeins 


THE  LOCOMOTIVE  ENGINEER        399 

of  various-colored  yarns,  and  make  them  pick  out 
green  from  red,  and  so  on.  It  is  not  pleasant  to  think 
what  might  happen  if  an  engineer's  eyes  should  sud- 
denly fail  him,  and  he  should  mistake  the  danger  light 
for  safety  and  go  ahead  at  some  critical  moment  in- 
stead of  stopping.  Nor  does  one  like  to  fancy  what 
might  happen  if  an  engineer  should  go  mad  at  his  post. 

"I  know  one  case  where  an  engineer  did  go  mad," 
remarked  a  superintendent.  "He  was  one  of  our  most 
experienced  men,  and  had  held  the  throttle  for  years 
on  the  fastest  trains.  Then,  one  Sunday,  for  no  rea- 
son at  all,  he  went  to  the  round-house,  got  out  the 
'pony'  locomotive — that 's  the  one  fixed  up  with  a  little 
parlor  over  the  boiler,  and  easy-chairs  and  polished 
wood — it  makes  a  pretty  observation-car  for  big  offi- 
cials. Well,  he  got  her  out  and  started  lickety-split 
up  the  main  line,  running  wild  and  without  orders. 
He  stopped  at  Mott  Haven,  and  told  the  men  he  wanted 
the  'pony'  rebuilt  and  silver-plated — crazy  as  a  loon, 
you  see.  Yes,  he  's  in  the  asylum  now,  poor  fellow; 
that  was  his  last  run." 

After  this  one  of  the  group  gave  his  memories  of 
the  famous  speed  trial  on  the  Lake  Shore  road,  when 
five  locomotives  in  relays,  driven  by  picked  men,  set  out 
to  beat  all  records  in  a  run  of  510  miles  from  Chicago 
to  Buffalo.  This  was  in  October,  1895,  and  I  suppose 
such  elaborate  preparations  for  a  dash  over  the  rails 
were  never  made.  All  traffic  was  suspended  for  the 
passage  of  this  racing  special;  every  railroad  crossing 
between  Chicago  and  Buffalo  was  patrolled  by  a  sec- 
tion-man— that  alone  meant  thirteen  hundred  guards; 
and  every  switch  was  spiked  half  an  hour  before  the 
train  was  due.  The  chief  officials  of  the  Lake  Shore 
road  proposed  to  ride  this  race  in  person,  and,  if  pos- 
sible, smash  the  New  York  Central's  then  recent 


400  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

world's  record  of  63.61  miles  an  hour,  including  all 
stops,  over  the  436^  miles  between  New  York  and 
Buffalo.  They  had  before  them  a  longer  run  than 
that,  and  hoped  to  score  a  greater  average  speed  per 
mile ;  but  they  wished  to  come  through  alive,  and  were 
taking  no  chances. 

It  was  half-past  three  in  the  morning,  and  frosty 
weather,  when  the  train  started  from  Chicago,  with 
Mark  Floyd  at  the  throttle,  and  various  important 
people — general  managers,  superintendents,  editors, 
etc. — on  the  cars  behind.  There  were  two  parlor- 
coaches,  weighing  92,500  pounds  each,  and  a  million- 
aire's private  car,  one  of  the  finest  and  heaviest  in  the 
country,  weighing  119,500  pounds,  which  made  a  total 
load,  counting  engine  and  train,  of  something  over  two 
hundred  tons. 

The  first  relay  was  87  miles  to  Elkhart,  Indiana, 
and  the  schedule  they  hoped  to  follow  required  that 
they  cover  this  distance  in  78  minutes,  including  nine 
"slow-downs."  Eighty-seven  miles  in  78  minutes  was 
well  enough;  but  the  superintendent  of  the  Western 
Division  had  set  his  heart  on  doing  it  in  75  minutes, 
and  had  promised  Mark  Floyd  two  hundred  good 
cigars  for  every  quarter  of  a  minute  he  could  cut  under 
that  time.  But  alas  for  human  plans!  Between  up 
grades  and  the  darkness  they  pulled  into  Elkhart  at  five 
minutes  to  five,  which  was  85  minutes  for  the  87  miles 
— not  bad  going,  but  it  left  them  seven  minutes  behind 
the  schedule,  and  left  Mark  to  console  himself  with  his 
old  clay  pipe. 

One  hundred  and  thirty-one  seconds  were  lost  at 
Elkhart  in  changing  locomotives,  and  it  was  three  min- 
utes to  five  when  big  599,  with  Dave  Luce  in  the  cab, 
turned  her  nose  toward  the  dawning  day  and  started 
for  Toledo,  133  miles  away.  Great  things  were  ex- 


26 


402  CAREERS  OE  DANGER  AND  DARING 

pected  in  this  relay,  for  about  half  of  it  was  straight  as 
a  bird's  flight  and  down  grade,  too,  so  that  hopes  were 
high  of  making  up  lost  time,  especially  as  Luce  had  the 
reputation  of  stopping  at  nothing  when  it  was  a  ques- 
tion of  "getting  there."  He  certainly  did  wonders, 
and  five  minutes  after  the  start  he  had  the  train  at  a 
62-mile  gait,  and  ten  minutes  later  at  a  67-mile  gait. 
Then  they  struck  frost  on  the  rails  and  the  speed 
dropped,  while  the  time-takers  studied  their  stop- 
watches with  serious  faces. 

At  ten  minutes  to  six  they  reached  Waterloo  and 
the  long,  straight  stretch.  As  they  whizzed  past  the 
station,  Dave  pulled  open  his  throttle  to  the  last  notch 
and  yelled  to  his  fireman.  Here  was  where  they  had 
to  do  things.  Butler  was  7^/2  miles  away,  the  first 
town  in  the  down  grade,  and  they  made  it  in  6  minutes 
and  40  seconds,  nearly  68  miles  an  hour.  In  the  next 
7  miles  Dave  pushed  her  up  to  70  an  hour,  then 
to  72^,  and  let  her  out  in  a  great  burst  which  made  the 
passengers  sit  up,  and  showed  for  several  miles  a  top- 
notch  rate  of  87  miles  an  hour.  Nevertheless,  taking 
account  of  frost  and  slow-downs,  they  barely  finished 
the  relay  on  schedule  time,  so  that  for  the  whole  run 
they  were  still  seven  minutes  behind  time ;  the  schedule 
they  had  set  themselves  called  for  such  tremendous 
speed  that  it  seemed  almost  impossible  to  make  up  a 
single  lost  minute. 

The  third  relay  was  108  miles  to  Cleveland,  and  they 
did  it  in  104  minutes,  including  many  slow-downs  and 
a  heart-breaking  loss  of  four  minutes  when  a  section- 
hand  red-flagged  the  train  and  brought  it  to  a  dead  stop 
from  a  7o-mile  gait  because  he  had  found  a  broken 
rail.  The  officials  were  in  such  a  state  of  tension  that 
they  would  almost  have  preferred  chancing  it  on  the 
rail  to  losing  those  four  minutes.  There  is  a  point  of 


THE  LOCOMOTIVE  ENGINEER        403 

eagerness  in  railroad  racing  where  it  seems  nothing  to 
risk  one's  life ! 

The  train  drew  out  of  Cleveland  19  minutes  behind 
the  time  they  should  have  made  for  a  world's  record. 
Every  man  had  done  his  best,  every  locomotive  had 
worked  its  hardest,  but  fate  seemed  against  them  and 
hopes  of  beating  the  Central's  fast  run  were  fading 
rapidly.  The  fourth  relay  was  to  Erie,  95^  miles, 
and  some  said  that  Jake  Gardner  with  598  might  pull 
them  out  of  the  hole,  but  the  others  shook  their  heads. 
At  any  rate,  Jake  did  better  than  those  who  had  pre- 
ceded him,  and  he  danced  that  train  along  at  75,  80, 
84  miles  an  hour,  so  the  watches  said,  and  averaged 
67  miles  an  hour  for  the  whole  relay. 

"It  's  the  kind  of  thing  that  makes  you  taste  your 
heart,  and  packs  a  week  into  ten  minutes,"  said  the 
superintendent,  telling  about  it.  "You  may  take  one 
ride  smashing  around  curves  at  80  miles  an  hour,  but 
you  '11  never  take  another." 

Still,  in  spite  of  these  brave  efforts,  they  pulled  out 
of  Erie  15  minutes  late,  and  started  on  the  last  relay 
with  gloomy  faces.  It  was  86  miles  to  Buffalo,  the 
end  of  the  race,  and  they  must  be  there  by  eleven  thirty- 
one  to  win,  which  called  for  an  average  speed  of  over 
70  miles  an  hour,  including  slow-downs.  No  train 
in  the  world  had  ever  approached  such  an  average,  and 
their  own  racing  average  since  leaving  Chicago  was 
much  below  it.  So  what  hope  was  there  ? 

There  was  hope  in  a  tall,  sparely  built  man  named 
Bill  Tunkey,  whom  nobody  knew  much  about  except 
that  he  was  a  good  engineer  with  a  rather  clumsy 
ten-wheel  locomotive  not  considered  very  desirable  in 
a  race.  All  the  other  locomotives  had  been  eight- 
wheelers.  Still,  the  new  engine  had  one  advantage, 
that  she  carried  water  enough  in  her  tank  for  the  whole 


404  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

run,  and  need  not  slow  up  to  refill,  as  the  others  had 
done.  She  had  another  advantage — that  she  carried 
Tunkey,  one  of  those  men  who  rise  up  in  sudden  emer- 
gencies and  do  things,  whether  they  are  possible  or 
not.  It  was  not  possible,  everybody  vowed,  to  reach 
Buffalo  Creek  by  eleven  thirty-one.  "All  right,"  said 
Tunkey,  quietly,  and  then — 

Within  forty  rods  of  the  start  he  had  his  engine 
going  30  miles  an  hour,  and  he  pressed  her  harder  and 
harder  until  1 1  miles  out  of  Erie  she  struck  an  So-mile 
pace,  and  held  it  as  far  as  Brockton,  when  she  put  forth 
all  her  strength  and  did  a  burst  of  5  miles  in  3^2  min- 
utes, one  of  these  miles  at  the  rate  of  92^4  miles  an 
hour,  as  the  watches  showed.  "And  I  never  want  any 
more  of  that  in  mine,"  said  the  superintendent. 

The  next  town  was  Dunkirk,  where  a  local  ordi- 
nance put  a  lo-mile  limit  on  the  speed  of  trains.  Tun- 
key smiled  as  they  roared  past  the  station  at  more 
than  80.  A  crowd  lined  the  tracks  here,  for  the  tele- 
graph had  carried  ahead  the  news  of  a  hair-raising  run. 
That  crowd  was  only  a  blur  to  staring,  frightened  eyes 
at  the  car-windows.  The  officials  were  beginning  to 
realize  what  kind  of  an  engineer  they  had  ahead  this 
time.  Whizzzzz !  How  they  did  run !  Wahr ! 
Wahr !  barked  the  little  bridges  and  were  left  behind ! 
H-o-o-p !  bellowed  a  tunnel.  And  rip,  whrrr !  as  they 
slammed  around  a  double  reverse  curve  with  a  vicious 
swing  that  made  the  bolts  rattle  in  the  last  car.  Men 
put  their  mouths  to  other  men's  ears  and  tried  to  say 
that  perhaps  Mr.  Tunkey  was  getting  a  little  over- 
zealous.  Much  good  that  did!  Mr.  Tunkey  had  the 
bit  in  his  teeth  now  and  was  playing  the  game  alone. 

At  eleven-six  they  swept  past  Silver  Creek  with  29 
miles  to  go  and  25  minutes  to  make  it  in.  Hurrah! 
They  had  made  up  time  enough  to  save  them ! 


THE  LOCOMOTIVE  ENGINEER        405 

At  eleven-twenty  they  passed  Lake  View. 

"Twelve  miles  more,  and  1 1  minutes,"  yelled  some- 
body, waving  his  hat. 

"Toboggan-slide  all  the  way,"  yelled  somebody  else. 
"We  '11  do  it  easy.  Hooray !" 

They  passed  Athol  Springs  at  eleven-twenty-four, 
all  mad  with  excitement.  They  had  7  minutes  left 
for  8  miles,  and  were  cheering  already. 

"We  '11  make  it  with  half  a  minute  to  spare,"  said  the 
only  man  in  the  private  car  who  was  reasonably  cool. 
He  was  six  seconds  out  of  the  way,  for  they  crossed 
the  line  twenty-six  seconds  before  eleven  thirty-one, 
and  won  the  race  by  less  than  half  a  minute,  beating  the 
New  York  Central's  record  per  mile  on  the  whole  run 
by  the  fraction  of  a  second,  and  beating  the  whole 
world's  record  in  the  last  relay  by  several  minutes,  the 
figures  standing — Tunkey's  figures — 86  miles  from 
Erie  to  Buffalo  in  70  minutes  and  46  seconds,  or  an 
average  speed  of  72.91  miles  an  hour. 

"Do?"  said  the  official.  "What  did  we  do?  Why, 
we— we — "  He  paused  helplessly,  and  then  added, 
with  a  grin :  "Well,  we  did  n't  do  a  thing  to  Tunkey !" 


IV 


WE    HEAR    SOME    THRILLING    STORIES    AT    A    ROUND- 
HOUSE   AND    REACH    THE    END    OF    THE    BOOK 

IT  was  in  the  round-house  at  Forty-fifth  Street,  a 
place  of  drip  and  steam  and  oil  smears,  that  I  lis- 
tened to  Bronson  and  Lewis,  two  good  men  at  the 
throttle,  as  they  held  forth  on  the  subject  of  killing 
people  with  an  engine. 

"After  all,  it  's  an  easy  death,"  sard  Bronson. 

"I  know,"  said  Lewis;  "but  I  don't  like  it,  just  the 
same — I  mean  killing  'em." 

"Last  one  I  killed,"  observed  Bronson,  "was  a 
woman,  wife  of  a  congressman,  they  said,  all  done  up 
in  furs.  'Member  her?" 

"Up  by  New  Rochelle?" 

"Yes,  sir,  there  at  the  platform  end,  where  they  've 
made  a  path  over  the  tracks.  Too  lazy  to  follow  the 
road,  those  folks  are.  Take  a  short  cut  and  get  killed. 
Well,  this  congressman's  wife,  she  sauntered  across 
just  as  I  came  through  with  the  express.  Never  turned 
her  head.  Never  heard  the  whistle.  Queer  about 
women,  ain't  it?" 

Lewis  nodded. 

"Had  four  minutes  to  make  up,  and  we  were  going 
good — fifty-five  an  hour  easy.  Slammed  the  brakes 
on,  but — pshaw !  Congressman's  wife  she  stopped  the 
last  second,  and  that  settled  it.  If  she  'd  taken  one 
more  step  I  'd  have  scraped  by  her,  but  she  stopped. 
Had  to  kill  her.  What  's  a  man  to  do?" 

406 


THE  LOCOMOTIVE '  ENGINEER        407 

"Why  did  she  stop?"  I  asked. 

"Oh,  some  idea.  Prob'ly  forgot  where  she  was. 
Nice  lady.  Makes  a  man  sick." 

"Tell  ye  what  I  think/'  said  Lewis.  "I  think  there  's 
women  start  across  a  track  to  take  a  chance.  If  they 
get  hit  it  's  all  right,  and  if  they  don't  it  's  all  right. 
Same  as  girls  pull  leaves  off  a  flower  to  see  if  some 
fellow  loves  'em.  There  was — 

"She  did  n't  do  that,"  put  in  Bronson. 

"I  don't  say  she  did,  but  some  might.  There  was 
a  woman  up  at  Larchmont  walked  across  in  front  of 
me  the  other  day.  Had  a  baby,  too,  in  her  arms. 
Now,  why  should  a  woman  start  over  four  tracks  just 
as  I  was  coming,  and  walk  slow,  if  she  did  n't  want  to 
take  a  chance?  Mind  you,  I  was  on  the  far  side,  and 
she  had  to  cross  three  tracks  before  she  got  to  mine. 
And  all  the  time  I  had  the  whistle  wide  open.  Why,  a 
dog  would  have  heard  that  whistle  and  got  out  o'  the 
way." 

"Did  you —  '  I  began. 

"Hit  her?  I  did  n't  know  at  the  time,  it  was  such 
a  close  call.  Thought  I  had,  but  I  found  out  after- 
ward she  got  past — by  the  skin  of  her  teeth.  Bet  you 
she  'cl  had  some  trouble.  Thought  she  might  as  well 
quit  the  game  and  take  the  baby  along.  Then,  mebbe, 
she  was  glad  when  she  got  across  safe." 

"Can't  tell,"  reflected  Bronson. 

"I  b'lieve  there  's  such  a  thing  as  people  getting 
drawn  to  a  train.  I  don't  mean  by  the  suction,  but 
drawn  by  the  idea  of  its  going  so  blamed  fast  and  being 
so  strong,  especially  people  sick  or  down  on  their  luck. 
Now,  last  year  I  was  coming  through  Rye  one  morn- 
ing, and  as  I  struck  the  bridge  after  that  reverse  curve 
I  saw  two  young  fellows  running  along  the  No.  3  track 
away  from  me.  I  was  on  No.  i  track,  so  they  were  all 


408  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

right,  but  as  I  came  up  they  both  swung  over  to  No.  i , 
and  I  cut  'em  all  to  bits.  Turned  out  they  were  a 
couple  of  lads  that  had  tramped  it  down  from  Boston, 
goin'  to  enlist.  They  were  weak  and  hungry,  and  I 
think  they  just  gave  up  to  the  train  because  they 
could  n't  help  it." 

"Might  be/'  said  Bronson. 

"Tell  ye  who  was  the  nerviest  man  I  ever  killed," 
went  on  Lewis.  "Fellow  in  West  Haven.  Say,  but 
we  were  coming  that  night!  Northampton  express, 
ye  know,  and  a  down  grade  over  the  salt  meadows. 
First  thing  I  knew  a  man  was  standing  at  the  side  of 
the  track,  fairly  close,  but  not  where  he  'd  get  hit.  I 
thought  he  was  some  friend  of  mine  in  West  Haven 
trying  to  make  me  whistle.  But  when  I  got  near  him, 
say  a  hundred  feet  away,  he  stepped  out  between  the 
rails  and  stood  there  a  few  seconds  with  his  arms 
lifted  and  a  smile  on  his  face — quite  a  pretty  smile. 
Then,  just  as  I  was  on  him  he  turned  and  knelt  between 
the  rails.  I  got  the  brakes  on  quick  as  I  could,  emer- 
gency and  everything,  but  I  could  n't  stop  her  in  less 
than  a  length  and  a  half,  and — well,  I  guess  you  don't 
want  to  know  what  that  engine  looked  like  when  I  went 
over  her." 

"I  know,"  said  Bronson,  "they  scatter  something 
terrible.  Say,  I  've  noticed  that  sort  of  pleasant  look  in 
their  faces,  too.  Once  I  was  waiting  on  a  siding,  and 
a  man  came  up  and  spoke  to  me  very  polite,  and  wanted 
to  know  if  I  'd  please  give  him  a  drink  of  water.  I 
told  him  the  water  in  my  tank  was  too  warm  to  drink, 
but  I  let  him  have  my  cup  and  showed  him  where  there 
was  a  spring  right  near.  He  thanked  me  and  walked 
over  to  it,  and  T  watched  him  bend  down  and  take  two 
good  drinks,  then  he  brought  the  cup  back  and  thanked 
me  again. 


"  DRAWN   BY  THE  IDEA  OF   ITS  GOING  SO   BLAMED   FAST  AND  BEING  SO   STRONG." 


410  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

"  'Any  train  along  here  soon?'  he  asked. 

"'Which  way?'  said  I. 
'  'Don't  matter  which  way,'  said  he. 

'There  's  an  up  train  due  now/  said  I;  'she  's  the 
one  I  'm  waiting  for.' 

"  'Is  she  a  fast  train?'  he  asked. 

"  'Fair,'  said  I ;  '  'bout  fifty  an  hour  along  here.' 

'That  's  good,'  said  he,  and  I  wondered  what  he 
meant.     He  seemed  like  a  nice  man. 

"Pretty  soon  along  came  the  up  train,  and  I  saw  him 
run  down  the  track  to  meet  he1*.  Then  he  stopped, 
faced  sideways,  and  let  himself  fall' square  across  the 
rails.  Say,  I  was  mighty  glad  I  'd  fixed  it  so  he*  had 
that  drink  of  water.  That  was  his  last  drink." 

"Queer  how  they  like  to  be  hit  by  a  fast  express," 
reflected  Lewis,  "when  a  slow  freight  would  do  just 
as  well.  Now,  that  man  at  West  Haven,  the  one  who 
took  it  kneeling  down,  he  'd  waited  around  the  tracks 
all  day — the  section-gang  saw  him — and  he  was  n't 
doing  a  thing  but  picking  out  a  train  fast  enough  for 
him.  He  'd  stand  ready  for  one,  but  when  she  'd  turn 
out  to  be  an  accommodation  or  something  slow  he  'd 
step  away.  Did  n't  propose  to  shake  hands  with  any- 
thing under  fifty  an  hour.  Mine  was  the  first  one 
suited  him." 

"Do  you  ever  think  of  their  faces?"  I  asked;  "ever 
see  them  at  night — the  way  they  looked  when  you 
struck  them !" 

"No,"  said  Bronson;  "can't  say  I  ever  do." 

Neither  did  Lewis.  And  I  judge  that  engine-drivers 
are  not  deeply  affected  by  these  sad  occurrences. 
Which  is  fortunate,  for  few  escape  them.  Indeed,  in 
going  about  from  engine  to  engine  I  found  the  follow- 
ing dialogue  repeated  over  and  over  again: 

"Ever  in  a  collision?" 


THE  LOCOMOTIVE  ENGINEER        411 

"No,  sir." 

"Ever  go  off  the  track?" 

"No,  sir." 

"Ever  kill  anybody?" 

"Oh,  yes.  Why,  only  last  week  I  struck  a—"  Then 
would  follow  a  story  of  sudden  death.  And  they  all 
spoke  in  a  kindly  but  matter-of-fact  way,  as  if  these 
swift  executions  were  part  of  their  business.  And  I 
have  it  from  a  veteran  that  any  engine-driver  would 
sooner  hit  a  man  than  a  hog,  for  a  hog  is  very  apt  to 
wreck  the  train;  a  hog  is  worse  than  a  horse,  whereas 
a  man  makes  no  trouble ;  he  simply  gets  killed. 

Near  the  roaring  round-house  at  Mott  Haven  is 
another  interesting  place — the  "Young  Men's  Chris- 
tian Association  Car,"  which  is  not  a  car  at  all,  but  a 
dingy  shed  built  of  four  cars,  and  serving  as  lunch- 
room, wash-room,  reading-room,  and  sleeping-room 
for  men  of  the  trains.  This  is  a  homely  refuge  spot, 
where  any  morning  we  may  meet  engineers  resting 
after  a  hard  night's  run  or  making  ready  to  go  out 
again.  Let  us  drop  in  and  join  one  of  the  groups. 

Here  is  a  man  telling  about  the  mad  run  "Big  Ar- 
thur" made  the  other  night  down  from  Albany.  We 
get  just  the  tail  of  the  story :  "So  the  superintendent 
he  ripped  around  about  how  they  were  twenty-seven 
minutes  late,  and  Big  Arthur  he  sat  in  the  cab  and 
never  said  a  word.  'Now,'  says  the  superintendent, 
rather  sarcastic,  'I  suppose  you  know  this  is  the  Empire 
State  Express  you  're  running?'  'Yep,'  says  Big  Ar- 
thur. 'Well,  do  you  know  what  time  she  's  supposed 
to  pull  into  the  Grand  Central?'  'Yep,'  says  Big  Ar- 
thur again,  and  that  's  all  he  did  say;  but,  holy  smoke! 
how  they  went !  Had  those  porters  on  the  private  car 
scared  green !  A  hundred  miles  an  hour  some  o'  the 
way,  and  they  came  in  on  time  to  the  dot.  Oh,  you 


412  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

can't  beat  these  new  engines  with  the  fire-box  over  the 
trailer;  but  say,  was  n't  that  great  when  Big  Arthur 
snapped  out  'Yep '  to  the  old  man  ?" 

I  asked  if  1  might  see  Big  Arthur,  and  one  of  the 
engineers  said  he  'd  be  along  pretty  soon,  and  in  the 
meantime  he  told  me  about  the  individuality  of  loco- 
motives :  how  one  is  good-tempered  and  willing,  while 
another  is  cranky;  how  the  same  locomotive  will  act 
differently  at  different  times,  just  as  people  have 
whims,  and  how  some  locomotives  are  fated  to  ill  luck, 
so  that  nobody  wants  to  drive  them. 

"Take  these  ten  new  engines  the  company  's  just 
put  on.  They  're  the  finest  and  strongest  made,  a 
whole  lot  better  than  the  ones  we  've  thought  were  won- 
ders on  the  Empire  State.  They  're  beauties,  and  all 
exactly  alike,  measurements  all  the  same;  but  every 
one  of  'em  has  its  own  points,  good  and  bad.  One 
will  go  faster  than  another  with  just  the  same  steam. 
One  will  pull  a  .heavier  load  with  less  coal.  And  very 
likely  there  '11  be  some  kind  of  a  hoodoo  on  one  of  'em. 
Takes  time,  though,  to  find  out  these  things.  It  's 
like  getting  acquainted  with  a  man." 

Other  men  came  in  now,  and  the  talk  changed  to 
accidents.  I  asked  if  an  engineer  plans  ahead  what 
he  will  do  in  a  collision.  It  seemed  reasonable  that  a 
man  always  under  such  menace  would  have  settled  his 
mind  on  some  prospective  action.  But  they  laughed 
at  the  idea,  and  declared  that  an  engineer  can  no  more 
tell  how  he  will  act  in  an  emergency  than  the  ordinary 
citizen  can  say  what  he  would  do  in  a  fire,  or  how  he 
would  meet  a  burglar.  One  engineer  would  jump,  an- 
other would  stick  to  his  throttle,  and  the  chances  of 
being  killed  were  as  good  one  way  as  the  other. 

The  mention  of  a  burglar  led  one  of  the  new-comers 
to  tell  of  William  Powell's  adventure  with  some  Sing 


THE  LOCOMOTIVE  ENGINEER        413 

Sing  convicts.     Powell  was  the  oldest  engineer  on  the 
New  York  Central.     He  died  a  year  ago,  and  this 


"CONVICTS  HAD  REVOLVERS  ALL  RIGHT  THAT  TRIP  AND  DENNY 
THREW  UP  HIS  HANDS." 

thing  happened  back  in  the  seventies.  It  seems  there 
was  a  trestle  over  the  track  about  half  a  mile  below 
the  Sing  Sing  station,  and  on  this  trestle  some  convicts 
working  in  the  quarry  used  to  run  little  cars  loaded 
with  stone  and  dump  them  into  the  larger  cars  under- 


414  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

neath.  Of  course,  they  worked  under  the  surveillance 
of  well-armed  guards. 

On  one  occasion,  however,  four  or  five  convicts  out- 
witted the  guards  by  dropping  from  the  trestle  upon  the 
tender  of  a  moving  locomotive,  and  the  first  thing  the 
engineer  knew  he  was  set  upon  by  a  band  of  desperate 
men,  who  covered  him  and  his  fireman  with  revolvers. 
At  the  same  moment  half  a  dozen  shots  rang  out,  and 
bullets  came  crashing  through  the  cab  sides  from  the 
guards  firing  at  random  after  the  fleeing  engine.  Al- 
together it  was  quite  the  reverse  of  pleasant  for  Wil- 
liam Powell. 

"Out  you  go  now,  quick !"  said  the  convicts ;  "we  '11 
run  this  engine  ourselves." 

The  engine  was  No.  105,  Powell's  pride  and  pet,  and 
he  could  not  bear  to  have  unregenerate  hands  laid 
upon  her,  so  he  spoke  up  very  politely:  "Let  me  run 
her  for  you,  gentlemen;  I  '11  go  wherever  you  say." 

They  agreed  to  this,  and  some  distance  down  the 
line  left  the  engine  and  departed  into  the  woods. 

"And  the  joke  of  it  was,"  concluded  the  narrator, 
"that  the  revolvers  those  convicts  had  were  made  of 
wood  painted  black,  and  could  n't  shoot  any  more 
than  the  end  of  a  broom !  It  was  a  big  bluff,  but  it 
worked." 

"Was  n't  any  bluff  when  Denny  Cassin  got  held  up 
at  Sing  Sing,"  said  another  engineer.  "Convicts  had 
revolvers  all  right  that  trip,  and  Denny  threw  up  his 
hands  same  as  any  man  would.  That  was  twenty 
years  ago,  on  old  engine  89.  It  was  right  at  the  Sing 
Sing  station,  and  three  of  'em  jumped  into  the  cab 
all  of  a  sudden  and  told  Denny  to  open  her  up,  and  you 
bet  he  did.  Then  they  told  him  to  jump,  and  he 
jumped ;  but  first  he  managed  to  fix  her  tank-valves  so 
she  'd  pump  herself  full  of  water  and  stop  before  she  'd 


THE  LOCOMOTIVE  ENGINEER        415 

gone  far.  That  was  Denny's  great  scheme,  and  he 
walked  along  laughing  to  think  how  mad  those  con- 
victs would  be  in  a  few  minutes. 

"It  turned  out,  though,  that  Denny  spoiled  a  nice 
trap  they  'd  laid  up  at  Tarrytown  to  catch  those  fel- 
lows when  they  got  there.  You  see,  the  telegraph  op- 
erator wired  up  the  line  that  a  runaway  locomotive 
was  coming  with  three  escaped  convicts  on  her,  and 
the  train  despatcher  at  Tarrytown  just  set  the  switch  so 
the  locomotive  would  sail  plump  over  a  twelve-foot 
stone  embankment  down  into  the  Hudson  River. 
That  's  what  would  have  happened  to  those  convicts  if 
Denny  had  left  his  tank-valves  alone,  but,  of  course, 
89  got  water-logged  long  before  she  reached  Tarry- 
town;  she  just  kicked  out  her  cylinder-ends  a  few  miles 
up  the  track  and  stopped.  Then  the  convicts  climbed 
down  and  skipped  away.  Two  of  'em  got  caught  af- 
terward, but  there  was  one  they  never  caught." 

Presently  somebody  reported  that  Big  Arthur  was 
out  in  the  round-house,  getting  2994  ready  to  take  out 
the  Empire  State.  It  was  clear  enough  that  Big  Ar- 
thur was  an  important  figure  in  the  eyes  of  these  be- 
grimed men,  and,  setting  forth  across  the  yards,  I 
came  upon  him  presently,  torch  in  hand,  looking  over 
his  deep,  purring  locomotive  against  the  dangers  of 
the  run.  Another  engineer  by  the  fire-box  was  dis- 
cussing a  theory  of  some  of  the  boys,  that  a  man  can 
run  his  locomotive  by  his  sense  of  time  as  well  as  by 
a  watch. 

"Denny  Cassin  says  he  'd  agree  to  take  the  Empire 
State  from  Albany  to  New  York  and  keep  her  right  on 
the  dot  all  the  way,  and  bring  her  in  on  the  minute, 
just  by  feeling.  What  d'  ye  think  of  that  ?" 

"That  's  possible,"  said  Big  Arthur.  "A  man  can 
feel  how  fast  he  's  going.  He  's  got  to  judge  big  speed 


416  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

by  feeling,  for  there  ain't  any  speed-recorder  that  's 
much  good,  say  above  ninety  miles  an  hour." 

At  the  first  opportunity  I  explained  to  Big  Arthur 
and  his  friend  that  I  would  very  much  like  to  draw 
upon  their  experience  for  some  thrilling  incidents  in 
engine-driving. 

"Tell  him  about  the  time  you  went  in  the  river," 
suggested  Big  Arthur. 

"That  was  'way  back  in  '69,"  said  the  other,  "when  I 
was  firing  for  'Boney'  Cassin,  the  brother  of  Denny.  It 
was  in  winter,  a  bitter  cold  day,  and  the  Hudson  was 
so  gorged  with  ice  that  part  of  the  jam  had  squeezed 
over  the  bank  and  torn  away  our  tracks.  So  pretty 
soon,  when  we  came  along  with  twenty-three  cars  of  a 
train  of  merchandise,  why  in  we  went,  and  the  old  en- 
gine 'Troy'  just  skated  ahead  on  her  side  into  the  river, 
smash  through  the  ice,  down  to  the  bottom,  and  pulled 
thirteen  cars  after  her. 

"You  could  n't  see  a  piece  of  that  engine  above 
water  as  big  as  your  hand,  and  how  I  got  out  alive  is 
more  than  I  know.  Guess  I  must  have  jumped.  Any- 
how, there  I  was  on  the  broken  floe,  and  I  could  hear 
the  old  Troy  grinding  away  in  the  river,  churning  up 
water  and  ice  like  a  crazy  sea-serpent.  She  struggled 
for  nearly  a  minute  before  her  steam  was  cold  and  her 
strength  gone.  Then  she  lay  still,  dead. 

"I  looked  around  for  Boney;  and  at  first  I  did  n't 
see  him.  I  thought  he  'd  gone  down  sure,  and  so  he 
had ;  but  just  as  I  was  looking  I  saw  a  big  black  thing 
heave  up  through  the  ice,  and  I  heard  a  queer  cry. 
Well,  that  was  Providence,  sure !  It  seems  the  engine 
had  ripped  her  cab  clean  off  as  she  tore  through  the 
ice,  and  here  was  the  cab  coming  up  bottom  side  first, 
with  Boney  inside  hanging  on  to  a  brace  and  almost 
dead.  I  hauled  him  out,  and  then  we  scrambled  ashore 
over  the  wrecked  cars.  They  were  full  of  flour,  and 


THE  LOCOMOTIVE  ENGINEER       -417 

the  barrels  were  all  busted  open,  so  by  the  time  we 
reached  the  bank  we  looked  like  a  twin  Santa  Claus 
made  of  paste,  and  three  quarters  drowned  at  that." 

"But  Boney  stuck  to  his  throttle,"  I  remarked. 

"Yes,"  said  the  other,  "he  stuck  to  his  throttle.  The 
boys  generally  do." 

After  this  I  asked  Big  Arthur  for  a  story,  but  he 
assured  me  he  could  n't  think  of  anything  special. 

"Tell  about  that  woman  on  Eleventh  Avenue,"  said 
his  friend. 

"Yes,"  said  I,  "tell  about  her." 

"Oh,"  said  Big  Arthur,  "that  was  n't  much.  I  was 
pulling  a  freight  train  down  Eleventh  Avenue  one  day, 
going  slow  through  the  city,  and  at  Thirty-fifth  Street 
a  woman  turned  down  the  track  ahead  of  me.  I  whis- 
tled, but  she  never  heard  me.  She  was  going  market- 
ing, and  could  n't  think  of  anything  else.  I  saw  I  'd 
strike  her  sure — there  was  n't  time  to  stop — so  I  ran 
along  the  boiler-side  to  the  pilot,  and  got  there  just  as 
we  were  on  her.  Another  second  and  she  'd  have  been 
under  the  wheels.  I  braced  myself  and  made  a  jump 
at  the  woman,  and  struck  her  back  of  the  neck  with  a 
shove  that  sent  her  sprawling  off  the  track,  with  me 
after  her.  You  see,  I  had  to  jump  hard  or  I  'd  have 
stayed  on  the  track  myself  and  gone  under  the  engine." 

"Did  it  end  in  a  romance?"  I  asked. 

"Romance  nothing!"  exclaimed  Big  Arthur.  "That 
woman  got  up  so  mad — why,  she  called  me  names  and 
clawed  the  skin  off  my  face  until — well,  I  could  n't 
get  shaved  for  three  weeks  afterward.  In  about  a 
minute,  though,  she  cooled  off,  and  somebody  told  her 
I  'd  saved  her  life — which  I  had — and  then,  sir,  blamed 
if  she  did  n't  go  down  on  her  knees  and  try  to  kiss  my 
feet,  and  pray  I  'd  forgive  her.  Say,  that  's  the  only 
time  I  ever  got  prayed  to." 

Here  Big  Arthur's  fireman  whispered  something  to 


4i 8  CAREERS  OF  DANGER  AND  DARING 

him,  and  the  engineer  nodded.  "That  's  so,  that  's  a 
gopd  story,"  and  then  he  told  how  an  old  lady  of  sev- 
enty-five saved  a  New  York  Central  express  some  years 
ago  at  Underbill  Cut,  about  a  mile  south  of  Garrisons. 

"She  's  a  relative  of  my  fireman,  so  I  know  the 
thing  's  true;  besides  that,  the  company  gave  her  three 
hundred  dollars.  You  see,  it  all  happened  one  winter 
night,  and  this  Mrs.  Groves — that  's  her  name — was 
the  only  person  near  enough  to  do  anything.  She 
lived  in  a  little  house  beside  Underbill  Cut,  and  about 
four  o'clock  in  the  morning  she  heard  a  frightful  crash, 
and  there  was  a  freight  train  wrecked  right  in  the 
cut,  and  cars  piled  up  three  or  four  deep  over  the 
tracks!  She  knew  the  express  might  come  along  any 
minute,  and  of  course  it  was  a  case  of  everybody 
killed  if  they  ever  struck  that  smash-up.  So  what  does 
she  do,  this  little  old  lady,  but  grab  up  a  red  petti- 
coat and  a  kerosene  lamp,  and  run  out  as  fast  as  she 
could  in  her  bare  feet, — yes,  sir,  and  nothing  on  but  her 
night-gown, — right  through  the  snow.  That  's  the 
kind  of  a  woman  she  was. 

"Well,  she  went  down  the  track  until  she  heard  the 
express  coming,  and  then  she  took  her  red  petticoat 
and  held  it  up  in  front  of  the  lamp  so  as  to  make  a  red 
light.  And,  what  's  more,  it  worked !  The  engineer 
saw  the  clanger  signal,  slammed  on  his  brakes,  and 
stopped  the  train  a  few  car-lengths  from  the  wreck. 
Yes,  sir,  only  a  few  car-lengths !" 

Big  Arthur  nodded  thoughtfully,  and  climbed  into 
the  cab.  It  was  time  to  go. 

IN  ending  this  chapter  now,  and  with  it  the  present 
series,  I  venture  the  opinion  that  the  men  who  follow 
these  Careers  of  Danger  and  Daring — the  divers,  stee- 
ple-climbers, and  the  rest — are  very  little  different  from 


THE  LOCOMOTIVE  ENGINEER        419 

their  fellow-men,  except  as  they  have  developed  certain 
faculties  by  their  exercise,  and  established  in  themselves 
the  habit  of  courage.  They  were  not  born  with  any 
longing  to  do  these  daring  acts,  nor  with  any  particular 
aptitude  for  them.  They  have  been  guided  nearly  al- 
ways by  the  drift  of  life  and  by  opportunities  that  pre- 
sented. As  to  fear,  they  have  the  same  capacity  for  it 
that  we  all  have,  and  are  serene  in  their  peril  only 
because  they  feel  themselves,  by  their  patience  and 
skill,  well  armed  against  it.  The  steeple-climber 
would  be  afraid  to  go  down  in  a  diving-suit,  the  lion- 
tamer  would  be  afraid  to  go  up  in  a  balloon,  the  pilot 
would  be  afraid  to  swing  on  the  flying-bars,  and  so  on. 

I  will  even  go  further,  and  say  that  the  average  good 
citizen  who  is  sound  of  body  has  as  great  capacity  for 
courage  as  any  of  these  men.  He  could  develop  it  if 
he  cared  to ;  he  would  develop  it  if  he  had  to.  That  is 
the  main  point,  after  all :  these  men  must  be  brave,  they 
must  conquer  their  fear,  and  the  only  trouble  with  the 
average  man  is  that  nothing  ever  occurs  to  show  him 
and  those  who  know  him  what  fine  things  he  could  do 
if  the  pressure  were  put  upon  him.  Yet  any  day  the 
test  may  come  to  any  one  of  us — pain  to  bear,  losses 
to  bear,  bereavement  to  bear.  And  then  the  great  test. 

Well,  perhaps  these  humble  heroes  whose  lives  we 
have  glanced  at  may  give  us  a  bit  of  their  spirit  for  our 
own  lives,  the  brave  and  patient  spirit  that  will  keep 
us  unflinchingly  at  the  hard  thing,  whatever  it  be, 
until  we  have  conquered  it.  And  perhaps  we  too  may 
feel  impelled  to  cultivate  the  habit  of  courage.  That 
would  be  a  fine  inspiration  indeed,  and  I  can  only  hope 
that  my  readers  may  feel  it. 


YB   16032 


LD  9-30- 


